| |
|
Of
Interest:
As
of October, 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates there
are about 104,099 centenarians, a number that is
increasing steadily, and is predicted to more than
quadruple by 2030, reaching 1.15 million by 2050.
Some demographers are even
predicting that high school students of today have a
good chance of reaching the century mark!
Also,
for the near term, a
conservative estimate is that at least one out of three
women age 50 today will reach 90. |
|
|
National Centenarian Awareness
Project – Inspiring Positive Aging. Our nonprofit 501(c(3))
organization
celebrates active centenarians as role models for the
future of aging. Each month we present remarkable centenarians and
feature one on our inspirational calendar. On our blog, we
discuss centenarians and what it’s like to live to 100 and beyond.
|
|
Up Front ...
|
|
"Redefining longevity: the
new centenarian spirit"
Read more: |
A Long Life: 7
People, Sailing Past 90 With Lots Left to Do
By Katherine Hobson
Read the article at U.S. News |
National morning news program.
"Approaching the American
Age of Centenarians"
Listen to radio segments with
Lois (102) & Will (105) Clark
and Elsa Hoffmann (102)
Click to go to website |
|
Our Featured Centenarians:
|
|
|
 |
Our celebrity centenarian Elsa Brehm Hoffmann, 102 (left), (click to read about Elsa's book: "Elsa Own Blue Zone"), attends a birthday celebration for her dear friend Dottie Jones (center), who recently turned 100. Dottie's friend Gladys Carls (right) is also 100. These lovely women know and practice two of the important longevity secrets: Stay social and enjoy life.
Elsa was interviewed by Barbara Walters in 2008 for a longevity special. Most recently, Elsa was featured in the February edition of "US News and World Report" and on the magazine's website. Click on link above to read the article.
|
|
|
National
Centenarian Awareness Project (NCAP)
a nonprofit 501(c(3))
organization, was founded by Lynn
Peters Adler, J.D., who has devoted her career to honoring, studying,
and advocating for increased recognition and inclusion of centenarians
and all elders as a natural part of the fabric of our society. Lynn has
a wealth of information about this increasing segment of our population
and centenarians in particular. Because of her rapport with this special
group, she has a unique understanding of their needs, thoughts, behavior
and philosophies of life. Lynn’s work is predicated on the belief that
ageism in America is both wrong and unnecessary. |
|
Lynn Peters Adler (center) with centenarians (l-r) "Rosie"
Ross, Lillian Cox, Elsa Hoffmann and Karl Hartzel.
Dorothy
Young, inset. Click to read
more about the "Fab Five" and
the Barbara Walters Special.
Click
here to read bios of
each of the "Fab Five." |
|
Lynn’s voice on centenarians, longevity and positive aging, with an
emphasis on quality of life issues, has been heard throughout the
United States. She continues her long-standing involvement in
community service with her appointment to a new term on the Arizona
Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging (www.azgovernor.gov/gaca) and the Arizona Attorney
General’s Senior Advisory Council. For ten years she served as
chairperson of the Phoenix Mayor’s Aging Services Commission.
She founded the Arizona Centenarian Program during her first term on
the Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging in the mid 1980s.
(click for more: About Lynn
Peters Adler)
Lynn, through her company Sterling
Resources Inc., is a consultant to
businesses
on programs relating to aging, longevity, centenarians and others of
advanced age.
She also serves as
a catalyst to bring active centenarians to the public’s attention, often
through print and broadcast media. |
|
National
Centenarian Awareness Project
Mission:
“It is
a great distinction to live to 100 years or more.” –
Lynn Peters Adler, 1985
ADVOCACY:
For the continued involvement of our
elders as integral members of society.
CELEBRATION/RECOGNITION:
NCAP seeks to contact and honor all those 100 years old
and older as our living links to history and works with
community entities to promote recognition of our eldest
citizens.
Click
to learn about NCAP Centenarian Recognition Program.
INSPIRATION:
Active centenarians are role models
for the future of aging
For more information about National Centenarian
Awareness Project, click on About
NCAP and read our blog: www.liveto100and beyond.com |
|
Direct email
to:
adler@NCAP100s.org
800-243-1889 or 602-363-8980 -
cellphone |
The
Christian Science Monitor
Redefining longevity: the new centenarian spirit
The US centenarian population is doubling
every decade – and they're redefining aging and
longevity.
|
|
By Chris Landers, Correspondent /
April 17, 2010
Baltimore
Garnett Beckman says she'd prefer to just be known as a little old
lady who walks. For a long time, she didn't tell people her age. It
proved to be an impediment when she wanted to hike the Grand Canyon
at age 75 – no one would take her.
"Nobody would go with me. They didn't
think I could do it," recalls Ms. Beckman, now 102. "I was afraid I
couldn't do it." |
Garnett Beckman, 102
Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/Christian
Science Monitor |
|
So she got up early, told her son she
was taking a trip with friends, and hopped a bus by herself, hiking
nine miles down Bright Angel Trail and overnighting at Phantom Ranch
on the other side of the Colorado River. She woke up early and hiked
back to catch the early bus. When her son picked her up in Phoenix,
she told him where she'd been.
"He almost wrecked the car," she says.
She was just getting started. She
hiked the canyon again a few weeks later, and her son came with her.
She'd make the trip more than 20 times in the following decades.
Though she discontinued her Grand
Canyon hikes when she was 91, Beckman still walks closer to home,
sometimes to the senior center where she volunteers to "help with
the old folks" and teach bridge on weekends. She's used to people
asking her age, but she doesn't let it slow her down much. She runs
with a younger crowd, she says: "My companions were always a
generation behind me."
As a centenarian, Beckman has achieved
what some demographers project most kids today will achieve: to live
past 100 with mental and physical health largely intact.
|
|
Medical science attributes increasing
longevity to a complex interplay of diet, exercise, and genetics.
But attitude, researchers suggest, is another factor we can learn
from our elders: Act as if you're still living, rather than dying.
It's what one elder advocate calls
"the centenarian spirit."
Continue reading article: page 2 |
|
|
|
|
Click for Barbara Walters'
article on the ABC website
The ABC Barbara Walters Special on
aging and longevity "Live to be 150" aired the first of April,
2008.
I was asked two years ago to participate in this
project and it was both a wonderful and exhilarating experience.
It was an honor and a privilege to work
with Ms. Walters and her talented and caring team of professionals.
We’ve put together a “behind the scene”
feature with bios of |
The Barbara Walters Special features five of our
centenarians:
Pictured (l-r): Dorothy Young, "Rosie" Ross, Lillian Cox,
Barbara Walters, Dr. Karl Hartzell and Elsa Hoffmann.
Click to read an article on the ABC website about the
Special by producers Jennifer Joseph and Rob Wallace |
|
each of the five centenarians who traveled to New
York City last September for this history-making, first-ever event.
When a “TV legend” is interested in longevity, it makes all the work I
have devoted my career to over the past 23 years worthwhile – AGING IS IN!!
Ms. Walters is even more attractive in person; she
was so gracious with the centenarians and her staff so very considerate
and respectful. I have participated in a lot of media productions over
the years and often with centenarians. Some of the experiences have unfortunately been somewhere
between upsetting and disappointing. But
with Ms. Walters’ team, it was “top notch,” as one of my 100-year-old
friends put it, and another summed it up as a “magical experience.”
Behind the scenes ...
The making of the
Barbara Walters
Special! Click here. |
|
|
Updated 4-2010 |
 |
|
© 1998-2010 National Centenarian Awareness Project & Lynn Peters
Adler, J.D.
No material, in whole or in part, may be reprinted
or reproduced in any form without the prior written permission
of Lynn Peters Adler and the National Centenarian Awareness Project.
Sitemap Website: Donald Downes
- www.donalddownes.com
|
