Senior Cohousing: A New Kind Of Housing For Aging Americans Starts To Catch On

To be honest, Kirk Davis "wasn't really interested at all" a couple of years ago when he first heard about the new cohousing community being planned near his Nevada City home in the Sierra foothills.

"My wife and I bought 11 acres after I retired and started building a rock cottage, and I thought I'd spend the rest if my life there," said Davis, 59, who sold his Pleasant Hill dental lab in 1999. "But my wife decided she didn't want to be so isolated, and we started going to some of the cohousing meetings. I began to see that the home we'd been planning was total isolation and that that wasn't very healthy. And I started to realize that it would be nice to have other people to share things with, like the first snow of winter."

It also helped that the proposed cohousing community, called Wolf Creek Lodge, is situated on an idyllic spot, along a wooded hillside bounded by a creek. The town of Grass Valley, with its grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants, banks and post office, is about a mile away and easily accessed via a walking and biking trail. "I fell in love with the site," said Davis, who joined the Wolf Creek Lodge project with his wife Barbara in 2006. Click here to read full article

Stagebridge Offers Summer Camp For Mature-But-Still-Budding Performers

Who says summer camp is just for kids?

Stagebridge, the nation's oldest senior theatre company, will hold its second annual Performing Arts Camp in Oakland from July 21-25.

The week-long camp, geared for adults ages 50 and up, gives participants a chance to try their hand at a range of performing arts, from acting, clowning and dance to drumming, improvisation and voice. Click here to read full article

Senior Center Without Walls Builds Community Over The Phone

Would you like to learn more about technology or storytelling? Do you enjoy jokes or bingo or mysteries? Think it would be fun to talk with others about food or current events or health issues?

An innovative program called Senior Center Without Walls connects older adults from around Northern California -- including many who are homebound or find it difficult to get to a community senior center -- entirely by phone.

Senior Center Without Walls offers friendly conversation and a range of activities, classes and support groups through telephone conference calls. The program is free of charge, and all calls are toll-free. No special equipment is required -- except for rotary dial phones, any telephone will work. Click here to read full article