A new grant from the New Jersey Division of Disability Services of the Department of Human Services will support the outreach, education and advocacy activities of this Teaneck-focused initiative - part of the state’s Inclusive Healthy Communities program.

“This is not only good news for our nonprofit, said Elizabeth Davis, executive director of The Bright Side Family. “It is a testament to Teaneck’s commitment to being a welcoming place for people of all ages and all abilities.”

Community Begins at Home is run in tandem with the 9-year-old Age-Friendly Teaneck community initiative, and the Township of Teaneck is an active partner in both efforts.

“We want to extend our thanks to The Township Manager and Township Council for their pledge to continuing working together to ensure older residents with disabilities are safe and supported in their homes and fully engaged in community life,” Davis said.

According to U.S. Census numbers, about 1,700 Teaneck residents over age 65 report having one or more disabilities. The aim of Community Begins at Home is to address some of the major risk factors faced by those residents, such as safety barriers in the home, increased risk of social isolation and a lack of access to resources that could help them remedy those challenges.

Over the past two years, staff of The Bright Side Family has worked to gather information about older residents with disabilities and their family caregivers through a survey, focus groups, home safety assessments, one-on-one visits, and referrals.

“We’ve held presentations about this initiative to government groups and local faith organizations, and we’ve created new informational handouts and added a spotlight on disability resources in each of our monthly Age-Friendly Teaneck newsletters,” Davis said. “We also hosted a Home Safety Expo and a Connections Fair to help educate residents about resources available to address their aging-in-place challenges.”

A chief goal is to raise consciousness about the health and social challenges of residents aging with disabilities – both those who have had lifelong disabilities and those who have aged into vision loss, hearing loss, mobility loss or other disabling conditions.

“We’ve learned through this work that many older residents who have aged into having a disability don’t self-identify as having a disability,” said EJ Vizzi, director of senior programs for The Bright Side Family. “That can translate into a lack awareness of benefits and resources available to them, such as assistance paying for hearing aids or help getting a ramp or safety bars installed in their homes.”

Likewise, those who’ve long had disabilities often face new challenges as they age and need help navigating the older adult programs and services that could assist them in aging-in-place and remaining active in the community.

Another challenge is that many of the agencies and organizations that assist older adults and those that assist people with disabilities often don’t work in tandem with one another – creating what are in effect “separate silos” of information and services.

As the Community Begins at Home initiative moves ahead, key focus areas will include:

• Recruiting Teaneck residents with disabilities to serve as advisors to this initiative and to act as “ambassadors” for specific disability communities. These advisers would be compensated for their time.
• Working with Township leaders to ensure residents always have an option to participate virtually through Zoom or other technologies in important Township meetings and events and to equip our Council Chambers, public library and other meeting spaces with hearing loop systems – technology that will be essential in future years to address rapidly rising rates of hearing loss.
• Empaneling a disability justice advisory board to make sure the unique perspectives of people with disabilities and their caregivers help shape Teaneck’s vision for the future.

“We hope to increase awareness in the community about the challenges that some of their neighbors routinely face, but our ultimate goal is to ensure that residents with disabilities have a voice in shaping progress and policies in Teaneck,” Vizzi said.  “The motto of the Disability Justice movement is ‘Nothing About Us, Without Us,’ and we intend to uphold that principle.”
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Anyone interested in learning more about or participating in the Community Begins at Home initiative can email cbah@agefriendlyteaneck.org or call 201-530-6756.

Elizabeth Davis, executive director of The Bright Side Family, thanked the Township of Teaneck and the many organizations that joined forces to ensure the success of the innovative project at 1425 Teaneck Road.

“Today, we celebrate the opening of a building that has created more than just 40 new homes,” Davis said at the Nov. 1 ceremony. “It’s created a securer future for these new tenants, who will be able to age-in-place in an affordable setting with on-site health, social services and aging-in-place supports. 

“It also has created a new community gathering space, one that will benefit older adults from throughout the community and foster new intergenerational ties,” she added.

The Bright Side Family, the nonprofit that leads the Age-Friendly Teaneck initiative, partnered with The Alpert Group, Monarch Housing Associates, Thriven Design, C&C Construction Management, and the Township to develop the 5-story building with 40 units of affordable senior housing and a ground-floor community center on the municipal-owned parcel at 1425 Teaneck Road.

“Throughout these last few years, what has stood out to me the most has been the commitment of support from the Township of Teaneck,” Davis said. “While many towns in New Jersey are still actively opposing the construction of affordable housing, Teaneck officials dedicated municipal land and resources to making sure this project could succeed, recognizing the dire need to create more affordable housing for older adults.”

Many government agencies and non-profit providers – including the Township Social Services department, Holy Name Medical Center, Jewish Family and Children’s Services of Northern New Jersey and Bergen County Division of Senior Services – will be providing wellness services and informational programming in the building. 

The community collaborations fueling this effort are one of the reasons that 1425 Teaneck Road was recently named  “Project of the Year” by the Supportive Housing Association of New Jersey, which will present the award at a Nov. 15 conference.

In making the award announcement, the Supportive Housing Association commented that the project “exemplifies what is possible when a municipality enthusiastically supports the creation of supportive housing.” 

In another acknowledgement of the community spirit and determination that went into the development of 1425 Teaneck Road, the building and the community center will be dedicated to the memory of the late Teaneck Mayor Lizette Parker.

A portrait of Mayor Parker, who was a social worker and champion of senior citizen causes as well as of the Northeast Teaneck neighborhood where this building is located, will be hung in the building at a dedication ceremony to be held on a still-to-be-determined date. 

With support from its partners, Age-Friendly Teaneck began hosting some informational events at the community center in October, with the goal of building out a calendar of social, education and intergenerational activities in subsequent months.

 “We intend for this community center to be shaped by input from residents of the building and from older residents throughout Teaneck,” said EJ Vizzi, director of senior programs for The Bright Side Family. “We will be distributing surveys to gauge interest and rely on the input of our Age-Friendly Teaneck Advisory Board, which is made up of a cross-section of older residents, civic leaders and community providers.”

The hope is that the community center will be the site of new intergenerational programs. Age-Friendly Teaneck’s leaders are working with administrators of Teaneck Public Schools to develop creative community service opportunities for students to volunteer with and for older adults and to establish an Age-Friendly Teaneck Club at Teaneck High School.

The center will also be the lead site for AFT’s Exploring Careers in Aging internship program, with the hope of also expanding that program to include internship opportunities for local college students.

“We want to introduce this center as a place for older adults to make connections with one another and with young people in the community,” Vizzi said. “It is gratifying to know we now have a permanent gathering space from which to anchor our future age-friendly endeavors.” 

Anyone interested in receiving announcements about programs to be held at the community center should email info@age-friendlyteaneck.org to be placed on our email blast list, or call us at 201-530-6756.

The new grant program was announced in concert with the official release of the NJ Age-Friendly Blueprint, a 38-page report that suggests avenues for making New Jersey’s communities better places for older residents to age-in-place.

 “The growth in our older adult population is an opportunity to make our communities more inclusive and more integrated,” said Human Services Commissioner Sarah Adelman, at an announcement event held at the Brookdale Senior Residence in Teaneck.

Teaneck was chosen as the site for the announcement because it has an 8-year-old age-friendly community initiativethat Adelman recognized as a “model” for its work across sectors to address transportation, housing and other community livability factors. 

Leaders in Age-Friendly North Jersey have pledged to offer their partnership in assisting new communities in launching age-friendly initiatives.
 
“Partnerships have driven age-friendly progress in Teaneck, and the same can happen in towns across New Jersey, “ said Elizabeth Davis, executive director of Age-Friendly Teaneck. “We are pleased to hear of the state’s investment in this shared goal and we stand ready to offer our mentorship and support. We stand ready to be your partners.”
 
Teaneck Mayor Michael Pagan and Township Manager Dean Kazinci attended the announcement event, as did several Bergen County commissioners and administrators and members of the Age-Friendly North Jersey alliance.

“As we continue to build and expand on our work here in Teaneck, we are heartened by the steps New Jersey is taking today to fuel the momentum of the age-friendly movement across the Garden State,” said Pagan, who was also asked to deliver remarks at the event.
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Click here for an Age-Friendly North Jersey blog articles with more details about the announcement
Click here for a PIX11 news story/video coverage of the event in Teaneck

Roosevelt studied computer programming at Bergen Community College and worked at Public Service Electric Gas Utilities Company for 32 years before retiring from his position as a distribution supervisor. He and his wife have lived in Teaneck for 44 years, where they raised  two daughters.
 
Roosevelt serves on the leadership team of Covenant Life Ministries Church in Teaneck and graduated from its Ministry Training Academy in 2017. He serves in numerous other volunteer roles in Teaneck, including as a volunteer for Teaneck Helping Hands Food Pantry for 14 years and as a member of the Teaneck Community Scholarship Board for the past 12 years, the Teaneck Senior Citizen Advisory Board for 7 years, and the Teaneck Patriotic Advisory Board for 6 years.
 
We look forward to benefitting from Roosevelt’s commitment to serving his country and his community.
 
Now in its 8th year as a community-wide initiative, Age-Friendly Teaneck is thrilled to have a new advisory board of community volunteers and organization liaisons who share in our goal of making Teaneck as great a place to grow old as it is to grow up.
 
The advisory board will meet periodically, with members providing feedback to Age-Friendly Teaneck’s leadership team and working in concert with Project Coordinator Janice Dorman to expand age-friendly programs, activities and outreach in Teaneck.
 
We are introducing members of the advisory board on our blog and in our monthly newsletters in 2024.
​

Linda began her career in public accounting as a Certified Public Accountant at Ernst & Young, one of the Big 4 accounting firms. Her frustration with a minimal population of minority-certified accounting professionals led Linda to a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) senior executive career. She has pioneered the DEI function within a national, global professional organization and as a consultant. She is now enjoying a new career as a tutor for The Princeton Review and as a business consultant.

Since 2020, Linda has served as a volunteer for The Bright Side Family’s Senior Checks free money-management program. Linda also works as a caregiver support group facilitator and community educator for the New York City chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, a meaningful experience because she had been a caregiver to her own mother, who died in 2014. In addition, she serves as a mentor coach through the America Needs You program
 
We look forward to benefitting from Linda’s vast knowledge of business and DEI practices as well as from her passion for volunteering and serving the community.

​Now in its 8th year as a community-wide initiative, Age-Friendly Teaneck is thrilled to have a new advisory board of community volunteers and organization liaisons who share in our goal of making Teaneck as great a place to grow old as it is to grow up.

The advisory board will meet periodically, with members providing feedback to Age-Friendly Teaneck’s leadership team and working in concert with Project Coordinator Janice Dorman to expand age-friendly programs, activities and outreach in Teaneck.
 
We are introducing members of the advisory board on our blog and in our monthly newsletters in 2024. 

Arlene has been an active volunteer in both her professional and personal capacities. She served for 8 years as a volunteer member of the board of directors for a multi-county health care planning agency in upstate New York and in different health-care planning leadership and committee roles in the region.
 
Arlene is well-known in Teaneck for her 30-year history as a member and officer of the Teaneck League of Women Voters, for which she has served as Co-Leader, First Vice President and Treasurer. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Bergen County League of Women Voters. Those roles feed her passion to help develop an active, empowered and well-informed electorate and to be an advocate on a broad range of public policy issues such as protecting women’s right to choose, safeguarding the environment, improving educational opportunities, and making affordable housing and support services available to people of all ages. 
 
We are excited to benefit from Arlene’s wide-ranging experience and her desire to help advance the goals of the Age Friendly movement within her local community. 

​​As it enters its 8th year as a community-wide initiative, Age-Friendly Teaneck is thrilled to have a new advisory board of community volunteers and organization liaisons who share in our goal of making Teaneck as great a place to grow old as it is to grow up.

The advisory board will meet periodically, with members providing feedback to Age-Friendly Teaneck’s leadership team and working in concert with Project Coordinator Janice Dorman to expand age-friendly programs, activities and outreach in Teaneck.

We are introducing members of the advisory board on our blog and in our monthly newsletters in 2024. 

After retiring from full time work in 2020, Hildy has continued to volunteer in professional roles that reflect her passion to advance the inclusion of the cancer patient experience in treatment decisions, clinical research, and cancer care delivery. She now serves as a mentor of patient advocates for the SWOG Cancer Research Network.
 
Hildy holds several community service roles in Teaneck, including as co-director of advocacy for the Teaneck League of Women Voters and as vice chair of the Teaneck Environmental Commission. Hildy also volunteers for the Temple Emeth Social Action and Caring Committees in Teaneck, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism New Jersey (RACNJ), and as a Bergen County Election Super Poll Worker. 
 
We look forward to benefitting from Hildy’s vast public health knowledge as well as her experience as a passionate community advocate.

As it enters its 8th year as a community-wide initiative, Age-Friendly Teaneck is thrilled to have a new advisory board of community volunteers and organization liaisons who share in our goal of making Teaneck as great a place to grow old as it is to grow up.

The advisory board will meet periodically, with members providing feedback to Age-Friendly Teaneck’s leadership team and working in concert with Project Coordinator Janice Dorman to expand age-friendly programs, activities and outreach in Teaneck.
 
We are introducing members of the advisory board on our blog and in our monthly newsletters in 2024. 

Ellen’s volunteer roots in Teaneck run deep, from earlier years as an active PTA member to a stint on the planning board to her co-founding in 2006 of the Teaneck International Film Festival. In 2010, Ellen began serving as a hospice volunteer for Holy Name, a role that inspired her to write and independently publish a book on end-of-life care, titled Last Comforts: Notes from the Forefront of Late-Life Care.
 
Ellen has been active with Age-Friendly Teaneck since its founding in 2016, serving on both the steering committee and as chairperson of the Health and Social Engagement Task Force. In the latter role, Ellen was one of the creators of Age-Friendly Teaneck’s Exploring Careers in Aging summer internship program. Since then, she has played a central role in developing the curriculum and providing interns with a variety of learning opportunities, including leading them in discussions of films with aging themes and helping supervise the projects each intern presents at the end of the program.
 
Ellen also helped Age-Friendly Teaneck develop a guide to creating an age-friendly summer internship program and is working with our leadership team on an effort to expand internship opportunities for young people interested in working in aging fields.
 
We appreciate Ellen’s many contributions to Age-Friendly Teaneck and look forward to continuing to benefit from her knowledge, experience and energy.

As it enters its 8th year as a community-wide initiative, Age-Friendly Teaneck is thrilled to have a new advisory board of community volunteers and organization liaisons who share in our goal of making Teaneck as great a place to grow old as it is to grow up.

​The advisory board will meet periodically, with members providing feedback to Age-Friendly Teaneck’s leadership team and working in concert with Project Coordinator Janice Dorman to expand age-friendly programs, activities and outreach in Teaneck.
 
We are introducing members of the advisory board on our blog and in our monthly newsletters in 2024.

Janice Dorman, a longtime Teaneck resident, will serve as the project coordinator of Community Begins at Home and Age-Friendly Teaneck, dual roles that will have her working in concert with EJ Vizzi, Bright Side’s director of senior programs.

Dorman, whose professional background is in the real estate, fashion and project-management fields, has served in numerous community volunteer roles in Teaneck, including as a previous member of The Bright Side Family board. She and her husband raised their two sons in Teaneck.
 
“Janice brings a unique skill set as well as a deep understanding of Teaneck community dynamics and an awareness of the challenges that many residents face in trying to age in safety and dignity in their longtime homes,” said Elizabeth Davis, executive director of The Bright Side Family. “We’re thrilled to have Janice join our Age-Friendly Teaneck team and take the reins of this crucially important new project.”

EJ Vizzi will shift into an oversight role over Age-Friendly Teaneck, which will allow her to devote more time to guiding and shaping the diverse program offerings of The Bright Side Family. Vizzi’s expanded role includes designing and overseeing Community Begins at Home outreach and volunteer-recruitment efforts as well as the home-safety assessments and social work services to be offered through the project.
 
Key to the project’s success will be input and guidance from individuals with lived experience of having a disability, family caregivers and disability justice advocates. In-person and virtual focus group sessions for Community Begins at Home are scheduled for Oct. 18, which will be followed by distribution of a communitywide survey.
 
Click here to view the focus group invitation and here for more background on the project

The interns visited aging-services and long-term-care programs across Bergen County while also attending in-person and virtual learning sessions on topics ranging from technology-in-aging to elder law to geriatric medicine to universal architecture design.
 
Throughout the month, interns Aamena, Camila, Mindi and Reem worked in hands-on roles in a variety of settings – scooping out ice cream sundaes at one senior center, joining in a chair hockey match at another, helping residents of an independent living residence resolve their phone and digital technology challenges, just to name a few examples. 
 
The interns also participated in a range of learning sessions focused on topics such as ageism, portrayals of aging in media, justice and equity in aging, and the challenges faced by family caregivers. With the knowledge, they gained, each intern researched a topic of their choosing and presented about it at their graduation ceremony on Aug. 3 at The Brookdale.

Slide show presentation of this year's internship.

This summer’s internship marked the 4th time Age-Friendly Teaneck has been able to offer such an opportunity to Teaneck’s young people. The program would not be possible without the leadership of Age-Friendly Teaneck volunteer Ellen Rand, who leads many of the learning sessions, and the assistance and input of Yvonne Witter of The FORUM at Teaneck High School.
 
Our thanks to Ellen and Yvonne as well as the many organizations and representatives who donated their time and expertise to his internship: 
Robert Romano, Andora & Romano LLC
Bergen County Division of Senior Services
Michele Ogden, Bergen Volunteers
Justin Smith, Direct Supply
The Russell Berrie Institute for Simulation Learning, Holy Name Medical Center
Dr. Odessa Hoinkis
Five Star Premier Residences of Teaneck
J&J Pharmacy
Jewish Family and Children Services of Northern New Jersey
The Jewish Home at Rockleigh
Kaplen JCC on the Palisades
Angie Honza, Odessa Connect
Passaic County Architect Andrew Thompson
Dr. Hector Mora
Richard Rodda Senior Recreation Center
Ridgefield Park Senior Center
Dr. Lauren Snedecker, Rutgers School of Social Work