December 9, 2024 • 14 mins
We spoke with For All Ages Founder Deb Bibbins about the organization’s programs and services.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest today is deb Bibbins, founder and CEO of For
All Ages, So tell me how did For All Ages
come about?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Well? For All Ages was an initiative that Gary Sikorski
and I launched back in twenty nineteen before the pandemic,
after watching some family members go through a really tough
time and dealing with loneliness and the detrimental impacts of loneliness.
And the idea is that we are connecting the generations
(00:33):
and inspiring action and spreading awareness about the opportunities that
we all have to improve our social health and to
help each other, both younger and older people with their
health and simply by finding joy in everyday events.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
As I understand it, more people pass away from loneliness
than diseases, some diseases.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
You know, it's really incredible. As we we have learned
more and more about the loneliness epidemic over the past
four or five years or so, we've just been amazed
at the detrimental health impacts. So I can tell you
right now more than sixty percent of us are feeling
lonely on a regular basis, and loneliness is that feeling
(01:19):
that we just don't belong and that we don't have
that group of people that we can feel comfortable with
and being our authentic selves with. With more than sixty
percent of us feeling lonely, we really think about, gee, well,
what does that really mean and what are those health impacts?
And loneliness is a root cause, as it turns out
(01:39):
of things from anxiety and depression, substance abuse, gun violence,
domestic violence, suicidal ideation, and then for older adults, we
know that lonely older adults have a fifty percent higher
probability of developing some form of demas demnia, a fifty
(02:02):
six percent higher probability of having a stroke, and a
twenty nine percent higher probability of developing heart disease. And
so our entire mission is focused around bringing people together
so that we can reduce all of these detrimental health impacts.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So you're saying that it's not necessarily the loneliness that
people die from, it's what the loneliness causes that people
can die from.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
That's right. Absolutely. So you know, I am not a physician,
I'm not a clinician, but what I can tell you
from the research that we have done and that we
read on a regular basis is that loneliness actually causes
ourselves our beings to have health impacts both in our
(02:51):
mind and physically throughout our body. That makes us more
susceptible too, and starting with anxiety and depression, to feelings
anxious to ultimately as a chronically lonely person, that's when
things such as heart disease and the probability of strokes
start to.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Increase, and people self medicate because they're lonely, you.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Know some people certainly do people turn to different substances,
which is something that we are connecting with a number
of organizations across the state to really be thoughtful around
how do we prevent and then it's a prevention message,
how do we prevent people from going down the path
of substance abuse? And are there opportunities for us to
(03:37):
come together, whether it's socially or very specifically intergenerationally, to
reduce that probability that someone might go down. What I'll
say is I guess the wrong path.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Do you think that the loneliness epidemic is greater because
of age discrepancies or people not getting together with people
of different ages, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Think we all are social beings, and as social beings,
we're all meant to be together. And certainly when we
look back, say fifty sixty seventy years ago, there were
a number of people that were living in multi generational homes.
And as our culture has changed and shifted and young
(04:21):
adults head off to college in another part of the
country or even another part of the world and then
often settle there after graduation, we've lost a little bit
of that familial connection. And it also means though that
as people are thinking about how can we be good
(04:43):
community members right in our own community, and how can
we be thoughtful around engaging with others in our own
community to build our own sense of community and to
help our neighbors, we've lost a little bit of that.
And so what we're hoping to do is to kick
start the conversation on all of that. It's one of
(05:05):
the reasons why we launched what's called the Connecticut Collaborative
to End Loneliness a year ago, and that's a cross sector,
statewide initiative where we are bringing together people who really
care about this issue, senior leaders of organizations public and private,
to be thoughtful around changing not only how we interact
(05:30):
on a daily basis, but how are we building those
spaces and creating those spaces for people within our own
communities to come together. I'm a big believer that change
happens very locally, and so if we can be thoughtful
around ge engaging perhaps our local library to offer more
(05:50):
programs that bring people out within their community for social
connection opportunities and events, then that in and of itself
be helpful to all of us for people of all ages.
We know right now that the loneliest population is the
young adult population, and the young adults at age eighteen
(06:13):
to twenty two ish twenty two to twenty four are
feeling lonely at about a seventy five percent rate, which
is just incredible to think about, and there are so
many reasons for that. But what we try to do
is say, all right, how do we take a young
adult or a teen and connect them with someone of
(06:34):
another generation, an older adult, and have those intergenerational experiences
in conversations so that just engage both populations and bring
people together in a joyful, fun, creative way where they
can really get a lot of benefit out of being
(06:54):
part of the activity that they may not even be
thinking about, for instance, they may be leaving an event,
an intergenerational event, and have greater respect for one another,
and that helps to just foster that connectivity between generations
and reduce agism. They're also getting that social connection that
(07:15):
we've been talking about.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
You know, you were talking about the younger with the older,
and I was thinking about a friend's daughter who was
around that age, who said, I'm so lonely, and I'm like,
why would they be lonely. It's not like when we
were growing up. You can go anywhere, you can do anything.
You've got all the social media. And she actually started
working at a daycare with the infants, and every single
(07:38):
day she's working with those infants, and her loneliness is
gone because she's connecting with the babies.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yes, that's beautiful, What a beautiful story. We see that
over and over again, whether it's connecting with someone younger
than you, or connecting with someone older, or even connecting
with people your own age. If you can be in
a place where you feel that you have a sense
of purpose, and it sounds like she has that sense
(08:05):
of purpose as she's caring for others and where you
know that you belong and have that feeling of belongingness,
that you're contributing, that you're being listened to, and that
you're valued. I mean, that's something that we all want, right,
each of us wants that.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Tell me about some of the programs where you help people.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
We offer in person and virtual programs and events throughout
the state of Connecticut. Our most popular program happens to
be a virtual program that we launched during the pandemic.
It's called t at three and it connects a college
student with an older adult repair two people one to
one based on common interests, and we facilitate their growth
(08:50):
of an intergenerational friendship over a twelve week period. Be
a weekly phone calls and we're check in with them,
make sure things are going. Now, we send out weekly
conversation starters. We have just completed the ninth session of
this program, where we had ninety people from across the
state participating. So it's just been a beautiful program. We've
(09:16):
had more than six hundred people go through it, and
we're actually you can sign up right now for our
spring twenty twenty five session. So that's for college student
age people, so the eighteen to twenty four ish young
adult and for people age fifty five plus.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And again you can go to four Allages dot org.
Tell me about your Comfort Enjoy card campaign.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yes, you know, Thank you for asking. We know that
loneliness really is pervasive during the holiday season, and especially
for those adults who happen to be in assisted living
and nursing facilities, many of whom do not have visitors
on a regular basis, if at all. And for veterans.
(10:03):
You know, we have more than one hundred thousand veterans
in the state of Connecticut, and many our aged seventy
five plus and don't have the opportunities to connect socially.
And so the idea is that we are asking people
to handmake cards. We taking a step back. We launched
the program during the pandemic where we were delivering to
(10:25):
older adults that were in isolation. If you remember back
to that time where whether you were living in an
independent living or assistant living facility, the older adult population
was very isolated. We now have transitioned that to focused
on that holiday season where you know, we want to
(10:46):
make sure people know that they're not forgotten, and for
those in assisted living and nursing facilities especially and for
veterans across the state. Many times they are forgotten or
they feel well as though they are forgotten. And what
we have seen is that when people receive a card,
especially a handmade card, but even a you know, a
(11:09):
prepared card where someone has written in a couple of
sentences and it has a meaning to an individual the recipient.
People keep those cards by their bedside. They often read
them over and over again, and it starts to foster
that sense of belongingness. It's certainly not the same as
being there in person, right. We always say if you
(11:31):
know of someone or in an assisted living or nursing facility,
or you have the opportunity to go visit and just
be a friendly visitor, we encourage people to do that.
But this Comfort Enjoy Card campaign brings together people of
all ages. And you know, we have Girl Scout troops,
(11:51):
we have elementary school students, we have young adults in
college that are making cards, and we have corporations that
are bringing their senior leaders together to make cards. We
know that if we can distribute these cards and they
land on the lap of an older adult who was
(12:12):
feeling lonely, that it's going to make a difference. And
so our goal this year is three thousand cards. We
started this last year and we had a goal of
two thousand cards last year, and we were thrilled that
we met that goal. We're really hopeful that we can
get folks from across Connecticut making cards. There is a
web page and actually, if you just go to fall
(12:34):
Ages dot org, there's a pop up that comes up
and it'll take you right to our twenty twenty four
comfort Enjoy web page and you can learn more about
how to get involved, where the collection sites are for
the cards. We're asking people to make cards, you know,
even after Thanksgiving dinner or at a later time in
(12:54):
early December, if you want to get family or friends
together for an evening and sit for an hour and
engage in some social connection yourself while you're making cards
for others, you know, whatever the opportunity is. We're inviting
people to make cards and then to drop them off
at our collection sites by December tenth, and then we
(13:14):
will begin distributing them the week of December sixteenth, right
in time for the holidays.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Can people make donations as well?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh? Absolutely yes. So you know it costs money for
us to deliver all these cards across the state, and
people can sponsor the delivery of cards with a simple
ten dollar donation. Every dollar matters. As we are a
relatively small nonprofit organization that is volunteer driven, you know,
we certainly would appreciate a donation to help us offset
(13:46):
the cost of delivering the cards.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You have walks throughout the year, all of these different events,
and again you can go to Oralages dot org to
see everything that's happening. What is the Flourish Challenge?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
The Flourished Challenge with some one thing that we've came
up with a couple of years ago to really engage individuals.
So it's something anyone can do. And each of the
letters of Flourish stands for an activity that you can
do within your own community. So it starts with setting
(14:20):
up a card at a restaurant or a local coffee
spot and working with that organization to put a card
at one table that invites people to come together for
social connection.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I'm speaking with founder and CEO for All Ages Deb Bibbins. Again,
that web address is for Allages dot org. Thank you
so much for being here today and explaining all of
this and paying it forward. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Oh thanks so much, Allison, thank you so much for
having me on. I appreciate you
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. My
guest today is deb Bibbins, founder and CEO of For
All Ages, So tell me how did For All Ages
come about?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Well? For All Ages was an initiative that Gary Sikorski
and I launched back in twenty nineteen before the pandemic,
after watching some family members go through a really tough
time and dealing with loneliness and the detrimental impacts of loneliness.
And the idea is that we are connecting the generations
(00:33):
and inspiring action and spreading awareness about the opportunities that
we all have to improve our social health and to
help each other, both younger and older people with their
health and simply by finding joy in everyday events.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
As I understand it, more people pass away from loneliness
than diseases, some diseases.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
You know, it's really incredible. As we we have learned
more and more about the loneliness epidemic over the past
four or five years or so, we've just been amazed
at the detrimental health impacts. So I can tell you
right now more than sixty percent of us are feeling
lonely on a regular basis, and loneliness is that feeling
(01:19):
that we just don't belong and that we don't have
that group of people that we can feel comfortable with
and being our authentic selves with. With more than sixty
percent of us feeling lonely, we really think about, gee, well,
what does that really mean and what are those health impacts?
And loneliness is a root cause, as it turns out
(01:39):
of things from anxiety and depression, substance abuse, gun violence,
domestic violence, suicidal ideation, and then for older adults, we
know that lonely older adults have a fifty percent higher
probability of developing some form of demas demnia, a fifty
(02:02):
six percent higher probability of having a stroke, and a
twenty nine percent higher probability of developing heart disease. And
so our entire mission is focused around bringing people together
so that we can reduce all of these detrimental health impacts.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
So you're saying that it's not necessarily the loneliness that
people die from, it's what the loneliness causes that people
can die from.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
That's right. Absolutely. So you know, I am not a physician,
I'm not a clinician, but what I can tell you
from the research that we have done and that we
read on a regular basis is that loneliness actually causes
ourselves our beings to have health impacts both in our
(02:51):
mind and physically throughout our body. That makes us more
susceptible too, and starting with anxiety and depression, to feelings
anxious to ultimately as a chronically lonely person, that's when
things such as heart disease and the probability of strokes
start to.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Increase, and people self medicate because they're lonely, you.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Know some people certainly do people turn to different substances,
which is something that we are connecting with a number
of organizations across the state to really be thoughtful around
how do we prevent and then it's a prevention message,
how do we prevent people from going down the path
of substance abuse? And are there opportunities for us to
(03:37):
come together, whether it's socially or very specifically intergenerationally, to
reduce that probability that someone might go down. What I'll
say is I guess the wrong path.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Do you think that the loneliness epidemic is greater because
of age discrepancies or people not getting together with people
of different ages, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Think we all are social beings, and as social beings,
we're all meant to be together. And certainly when we
look back, say fifty sixty seventy years ago, there were
a number of people that were living in multi generational homes.
And as our culture has changed and shifted and young
(04:21):
adults head off to college in another part of the
country or even another part of the world and then
often settle there after graduation, we've lost a little bit
of that familial connection. And it also means though that
as people are thinking about how can we be good
(04:43):
community members right in our own community, and how can
we be thoughtful around engaging with others in our own
community to build our own sense of community and to
help our neighbors, we've lost a little bit of that.
And so what we're hoping to do is to kick
start the conversation on all of that. It's one of
(05:05):
the reasons why we launched what's called the Connecticut Collaborative
to End Loneliness a year ago, and that's a cross sector,
statewide initiative where we are bringing together people who really
care about this issue, senior leaders of organizations public and private,
to be thoughtful around changing not only how we interact
(05:30):
on a daily basis, but how are we building those
spaces and creating those spaces for people within our own
communities to come together. I'm a big believer that change
happens very locally, and so if we can be thoughtful
around ge engaging perhaps our local library to offer more
(05:50):
programs that bring people out within their community for social
connection opportunities and events, then that in and of itself
be helpful to all of us for people of all ages.
We know right now that the loneliest population is the
young adult population, and the young adults at age eighteen
(06:13):
to twenty two ish twenty two to twenty four are
feeling lonely at about a seventy five percent rate, which
is just incredible to think about, and there are so
many reasons for that. But what we try to do
is say, all right, how do we take a young
adult or a teen and connect them with someone of
(06:34):
another generation, an older adult, and have those intergenerational experiences
in conversations so that just engage both populations and bring
people together in a joyful, fun, creative way where they
can really get a lot of benefit out of being
(06:54):
part of the activity that they may not even be
thinking about, for instance, they may be leaving an event,
an intergenerational event, and have greater respect for one another,
and that helps to just foster that connectivity between generations
and reduce agism. They're also getting that social connection that
(07:15):
we've been talking about.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
You know, you were talking about the younger with the older,
and I was thinking about a friend's daughter who was
around that age, who said, I'm so lonely, and I'm like,
why would they be lonely. It's not like when we
were growing up. You can go anywhere, you can do anything.
You've got all the social media. And she actually started
working at a daycare with the infants, and every single
(07:38):
day she's working with those infants, and her loneliness is
gone because she's connecting with the babies.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yes, that's beautiful, What a beautiful story. We see that
over and over again, whether it's connecting with someone younger
than you, or connecting with someone older, or even connecting
with people your own age. If you can be in
a place where you feel that you have a sense
of purpose, and it sounds like she has that sense
(08:05):
of purpose as she's caring for others and where you
know that you belong and have that feeling of belongingness,
that you're contributing, that you're being listened to, and that
you're valued. I mean, that's something that we all want, right,
each of us wants that.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Tell me about some of the programs where you help people.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
We offer in person and virtual programs and events throughout
the state of Connecticut. Our most popular program happens to
be a virtual program that we launched during the pandemic.
It's called t at three and it connects a college
student with an older adult repair two people one to
one based on common interests, and we facilitate their growth
(08:50):
of an intergenerational friendship over a twelve week period. Be
a weekly phone calls and we're check in with them,
make sure things are going. Now, we send out weekly
conversation starters. We have just completed the ninth session of
this program, where we had ninety people from across the
state participating. So it's just been a beautiful program. We've
(09:16):
had more than six hundred people go through it, and
we're actually you can sign up right now for our
spring twenty twenty five session. So that's for college student
age people, so the eighteen to twenty four ish young
adult and for people age fifty five plus.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
And again you can go to four Allages dot org.
Tell me about your Comfort Enjoy card campaign.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yes, you know, Thank you for asking. We know that
loneliness really is pervasive during the holiday season, and especially
for those adults who happen to be in assisted living
and nursing facilities, many of whom do not have visitors
on a regular basis, if at all. And for veterans.
(10:03):
You know, we have more than one hundred thousand veterans
in the state of Connecticut, and many our aged seventy
five plus and don't have the opportunities to connect socially.
And so the idea is that we are asking people
to handmake cards. We taking a step back. We launched
the program during the pandemic where we were delivering to
(10:25):
older adults that were in isolation. If you remember back
to that time where whether you were living in an
independent living or assistant living facility, the older adult population
was very isolated. We now have transitioned that to focused
on that holiday season where you know, we want to
(10:46):
make sure people know that they're not forgotten, and for
those in assisted living and nursing facilities especially and for
veterans across the state. Many times they are forgotten or
they feel well as though they are forgotten. And what
we have seen is that when people receive a card,
especially a handmade card, but even a you know, a
(11:09):
prepared card where someone has written in a couple of
sentences and it has a meaning to an individual the recipient.
People keep those cards by their bedside. They often read
them over and over again, and it starts to foster
that sense of belongingness. It's certainly not the same as
being there in person, right. We always say if you
(11:31):
know of someone or in an assisted living or nursing facility,
or you have the opportunity to go visit and just
be a friendly visitor, we encourage people to do that.
But this Comfort Enjoy Card campaign brings together people of
all ages. And you know, we have Girl Scout troops,
(11:51):
we have elementary school students, we have young adults in
college that are making cards, and we have corporations that
are bringing their senior leaders together to make cards. We
know that if we can distribute these cards and they
land on the lap of an older adult who was
(12:12):
feeling lonely, that it's going to make a difference. And
so our goal this year is three thousand cards. We
started this last year and we had a goal of
two thousand cards last year, and we were thrilled that
we met that goal. We're really hopeful that we can
get folks from across Connecticut making cards. There is a
web page and actually, if you just go to fall
(12:34):
Ages dot org, there's a pop up that comes up
and it'll take you right to our twenty twenty four
comfort Enjoy web page and you can learn more about
how to get involved, where the collection sites are for
the cards. We're asking people to make cards, you know,
even after Thanksgiving dinner or at a later time in
(12:54):
early December, if you want to get family or friends
together for an evening and sit for an hour and
engage in some social connection yourself while you're making cards
for others, you know, whatever the opportunity is. We're inviting
people to make cards and then to drop them off
at our collection sites by December tenth, and then we
(13:14):
will begin distributing them the week of December sixteenth, right
in time for the holidays.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Can people make donations as well?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Oh? Absolutely yes. So you know it costs money for
us to deliver all these cards across the state, and
people can sponsor the delivery of cards with a simple
ten dollar donation. Every dollar matters. As we are a
relatively small nonprofit organization that is volunteer driven, you know,
we certainly would appreciate a donation to help us offset
(13:46):
the cost of delivering the cards.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You have walks throughout the year, all of these different events,
and again you can go to Oralages dot org to
see everything that's happening. What is the Flourish Challenge?
Speaker 2 (13:58):
The Flourished Challenge with some one thing that we've came
up with a couple of years ago to really engage individuals.
So it's something anyone can do. And each of the
letters of Flourish stands for an activity that you can
do within your own community. So it starts with setting
(14:20):
up a card at a restaurant or a local coffee
spot and working with that organization to put a card
at one table that invites people to come together for
social connection.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
I'm speaking with founder and CEO for All Ages Deb Bibbins. Again,
that web address is for Allages dot org. Thank you
so much for being here today and explaining all of
this and paying it forward. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Oh thanks so much, Allison, thank you so much for
having me on. I appreciate you
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