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Do you know an Anchorage senior living in a household having difficulty paying a utility bill? Starting up again on July 1, the Anchorage Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) may be able to help. We all know sometimes life just isn’t easy and doesn’t always go the way we want. Dealing with the unexpected is difficult and can sometimes impact our ability to pay the bills. The Anchorage ADRC may be able to help. If you find yourself in a hardship situation, are an Anchorage resident (residing between Girdwood and Chugiak), age 60 years or...
How did Father’s Day begin? According to Wikipedia, there has been a customary day to celebrate fatherhood since at least 1508 in Europe. The national day honoring dads in the United States is recognized as being started by Sonora Smart Dodd, who was raised by a widower. Sonora Smart Dodd became a well-known poet, scribe and sculptor. She studied at the Chicago Art Institute and later taught at the school. She first became concerned about acknowledging fathers after listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. She noted that there wasn’t a day t...
Wikipedia reveals that the modern Mother’s Day holiday was first celebrated in 1907. Anna Jarvis campaigned to make Mother’s Day a recognized holiday beginning in 1905, when her mother Ann Reeves Jarvis passed. Anna’s mother had been a peace activist and had cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War and had been urging for a “Mother’s Day for Peace”, asking that husbands and sons would no longer be killed in wars. Anna Jarvis had wanted to honor this and set aside a day to honor all mothers because she believed a...
Sometimes life isn’t easy. Dealing with the unexpected is difficult and can at times impact our ability to pay the bills. If you are an Anchorage resident, age 60 or older, residing between Girdwood and Chugiak, have a utility delinquent notice and are experiencing a financial hardship which threatens your household’s ability to pay your utility bill, the Anchorage Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) may be able to help. Please contact us directly at 907-343-7770. Experienced specialists will help guide you to the resources that are the...
Many of us are not fans of New Year’s resolutions, so I prefer to look at it as setting goals for the new year. Some of those goals end up being accomplished – some not, for a variety of reasons that reveal themselves during the new year. Bonus is that sometimes writing down our goals can make a big difference in our outlook on life. Here are a few ideas to get started thinking about what you may want to accomplish in 2023: Make new friends (or stay in better touch with current friends). Plan more activities with others. Maybe in the pro...
Finding joy in small things, sharing our stories, and giving to others are powerful ways to connect with family and friends during the holiday season. The ADRC (Aging and Disability Resource Center) team would like to share a few suggestions that may be helpful as you navigate the holiday season, while remembering those whose holidays can be difficult and emotional. Here are some of our favorites: • Most of us are familiar with the technology that can be used on a phone or a computer such as Skype, Facetime and Zoom. Don’t forget – somet...
Have you ever found yourself, a friend, or a family member in a situation that makes it difficult to pay the rent on time? Or maybe struggling with paying a utility bill? Life happens. And sometimes not in a good way. Dealing with the unexpected such as a decrease in work hours or loss of income, an urgent medical need, an increase in expenses, providing financial help to a loved one, emergency travel – are all part of life, and can also threaten a family’s housing stability when the unexpected makes it difficult to pay the bills. If you are...
It’s a good time to talk about the newest resource available to Alaskans: 988, the three-digit, nationwide phone number which connects directly to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Not only is this an easy-to-remember number – it’s a direct connection to care. Care that is compassionate, and supportive for anyone experiencing mental-health related distress, whether thoughts of suicide, mental health, substance use crisis or any other kind of emotional distress, or for someone worried about a loved one needing crisis support. The launc...
I have noticed the last few years that although I love gardening and working outside, it seems a little harder each year to lift watering cans, bend and kneel on the ground, and work compacted soil. Gardening’s positive effects include relieving stress and anxiety and providing exercise, plus gardening may reduce the risk of dementia by as much as 36% (quoted in the Dubbo Study of the Elderly), so how do we continue an activity we enjoy without relying on bending and having to be in peak fitness condition? We have found a few ways to garden s...
We all love summer and sometimes our Alaska summers are warmer and smokier than others. How do you stay cool? Seniors need to be careful of overheating, our bodies don’t adjust as well to higher temperatures, and we tend to get more dehydrated. Medical conditions can change body response to heat. Some prescription medicines can also have an impact on our bodies’ ability to stay cool. Following are a few tips we found to stay cool: Don’t wait until you feel thirsty – drink plenty of cool water throughout the day. Popsicles, flavored ice cubes f...
