What’s Your Wish? Book Club: An Intergenerational Social Impact Learning & Action Network

Aging is universal. Sometimes we don’t stop to think about how intergenerational aging is and that aging affects all of us. If we are lucky, we get to see our grandparents or even great-grandparents age. Many of us have been able to see our parents age. Every day we ourselves are aging. As our inspiring new AARP CEO, ?Myechia Minter-Jordan, MD, MBA, said recently, “Aging is living.” And aging impacts us as human beings every day.

“Compared to our ancestors of just a hundred years ago, we are living so much longer that we have gained almost a whole second life – a second fifty” -Debra Whitman, AARP EVP and chief public policy officer, and author of The Second Fifty, Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond        

In my less than two months at Wish of a Lifetime from AARP, I’ve been tremendously inspired by Debra Whitman, AARP EVP and chief public policy officer, and author of The Second Fifty, Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond. As she says in introducing her book, “Compared to our ancestors of just a hundred years ago, we are living so much longer that we have gained almost a whole second life – a second fifty”. ?And I know many of us in our second fifty are changing things up and living that second fifty much differently than our parents and grandparents did. I know I am. I'm turning 60 this year (yay!) and 10 years ago I started really putting thought into my second fifty. And today I'm living my dream life.

Whether as caregivers, professionals working in any field serving and interacting with older adults, or as co-workers every day at work, we are working and living across generations. What’s Your Wish? Book Club is my idea, really a collection of ideas and thoughts and possibilities, to bring cross-disciplinary, cross-sector, intergenerational Twin Cities leaders together in a new way, to explore and learn, and drive action in our respective areas of influence. We will meet new people, explore new ideas related to intergenerational quality of life and aging, and have some fun along the way.

Why a book club?

Why a book format? If you know me, you're not surprised by this. This is a learning AND action network. Together all of us are working on so many aspects of quality of life and cross-pollinating is where our social connectedness can increase collaboration and social impact.

How often and where will we meet?

Our vision is to gather quarterly in-person in the Twin Cities, and once a year online. Underlying each 2025 quarterly theme is a featured local nonprofit leader working on an intergenerational well-being topic, their own quarterly book selection addressing an intergenerational determinant of health and well-being, and the consistency of reflecting on the seven underlying questions asked in the 2025 focus book The Second Fifty, Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond?by Debra Whitman, PhD.??

I hope you’ll join us!

January 2025?- Wishes and Dreams

As we begin the new year, many of us set resolutions or goals for the year. What about our wishes and dreams - those things that we hold deep in our heart?

Join me, Susan T. Schuster (Midwest Regional Field Manager, Wish of a Lifetime from AARP) and our inaugural featured nonprofit leader, Tory Merhar (Certified Dream Manager and AVP of Older Adult Services, Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota) for our first-ever What’s Your Wish? Book Club on Friday, January 31, 2025.

This January 2025 book club session will focus on personally and professionally exploring the place of wishes and dreams in our lives, thinking about your own life specifically and societal health in general. Together over the year we will explore intergenerational quality of life issues that impact older adults and how Wish of a Lifetime and local nonprofits like Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota are providing support to overcome barriers and build possibility. ?

Topic: Wishes and Dreams

Book: The Dream Manager, by Matthew Kelly (reading not required to attend)

Date: Friday, January 31, 2025

Time: 10-11:30 a.m. time zone

Register here. (space is limited) ?

In order to ensure we have seating for everyone, the location in Cathedral Hill, Saint Paul, will be communicated to attendees who RSVP. ?Depending on interest in this first meeting, I’ll let you know if you are "in" or are on the waiting list as soon as possible.