Spotlight on Age-Friendly Teaneck's Advisory Board Members - Ellen Rand

This month we are featuring Ellen Rand, who has been volunteering with us for nearly seven years. A Teaneck resident for 42 years. Ellen Rand is a journalist, blogger and author who has specialized in writing about housing, real estate, aging issues and end-of-life care.

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.

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