The Foreign Service Journal, May 2016

the Foreign Service journal | may 2016 35 spent 31 years in policy planning and research, with postings in India, Libya, Pakistan and Japan, among others, has a large family in the Pasadena area. She knows she can call on one of her four nieces if she has a health problem, but figures she will join the Village at some point. For now, she volunteers, driving members to medical appointments, shopping centers and museums. According to AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, 87 percent of people age 65 and older want to age in place. But many don’t have family members nearby, or may live in communities that provide little interaction with neighbors. Enter the Village. The first, Beacon Hill Village, was established in 2001, when a group of residents of that well-heeled Boston neighborhood decided to band together to keep an eye on each other. They ended up forming a nonprofit and went on to share their suc- cess story with others. Capitol Hill Village, For Example One afternoon in 2006, Mike and Judy Canning were on a stroll in their Washington, D.C., neighborhood when they ran into a friend, who stopped to chat about an idea. The friend, Joe Lewis, whose mother had died unhappy in an assisted liv- ing facility, was determined to avoid the same fate. “He’d seen an article in The New York Times about Beacon Hill Village and asked if we’d like to get together and talk about it,” Mike recalls. A group of neighbors met in the basement of a local bookstore. “We bonded immediately,” says Canning, a retired USIA officer, and Capitol Hill Village was born. The organization offers daily social programs such as trips to the movies or walks in the park, says Molly Singer, execu- tive director. It invites experts in wellness, current events or technology to conduct seminars. It emphasizes volunteering among its members. “We encourage seniors to keep engaged. Some volunteer at local elementary schools,” says Singer. The able-bodied might join a neighborhood snow-shov- eling brigade or visit the homebound after a storm. Capitol Hill Village’s many retired Foreign Service members get it immediately, according to Singer. “They’ve built a career on exploring the world and having new experiences. The Village is a continuation of that.” Most Capitol Hill Village members pay annual dues of $800 for a household or $530 for an individual membership. Sub- sidies are available to the 10-15 percent of members who are low-income. The dues pay for office space and minimal staff to coordinate services, many provided by members themselves. V illage to Village Network (VtV) is a national peer-to- peer organization (vtvnet work.org). Its mission is to enable communities to establish and effectively manage aging-in-place organizations initiated and inspired by their members, whether in large metropolitan areas, rural towns or suburban settings. VtV Network links together nearly 200 existing Villages and another 200 that are under develop- ment across the United States, and in Australia and the Netherlands. There are at least 10 Village orga- nizations in Washington, D.C., and some 30 in the greater Baltimore-Washington area. Through a map and search function on the website you can find out if there’s a Village in your area and how to contact it. VtV provides a forum for Village members to share best practices and explore new initiatives, as well as offering extensive resources. The “Village 101 Toolkit,” for example, includes a history of the Village concept, the core principles of a Village and various business models for the organiza- tion, as well as—for members—detailed step-by-step guidance on each phase of Village development. The network sponsors an annual “gathering” and advertises numerous forums around the country where anyone interested can come to learn or get involved. The 2016 gathering, “The Village Movement: Making Your Future a Good One,” will be held Oct. 17-19 in Columbus, Ohio. The network also offers members access to the content of forums and webinars on such topics as Village websites, fundraising and marketing, and research related to Villages, as well as to VtV’s Docu- ment Library. The Village to Village Network