Lynn Library launches healthy living program for seniors

LYNN – About 100 people packed a small room at the Lynn Public Library Friday to check out the new Kiosk for Living Well, a project aimed at building a community for and around seniors.”Most people only talk about building community,” said Greater Lynn Senior Services Executive Director Paul Crowley. “They have all good intentions, ‘okay, we should do this and this and this’ and then they go back to work. We’re trying to make that leap.”The kiosk project, which will be located in the fiction room just to the left of the main entrance, will be open two days per week to start from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., explained project coordinator Liz Bulkley. During those times seniors can come in, meet with advisors and explore, via face-to-face discussions or the computer, a variety of healthy lifestyle options. They might also find answers to issues they are dealing with from how to get to a doctor’s appointment to how to find a job.View a photo gallery of the open houseJoyce Blaho, a trained volunteer already working in Beverly, will walk visitors through exactly what the kiosks have to offer. Her job is to talk to seniors, find out what they need or are interested in, which is often transportation, she said. And it’s not about taking exotic trips.”It’s really about community travel,” she said. “It’s about how to get to Shaw’s.”Valerie Parker Callahan, director of planning and development for GLSS, said some of the programs visitors might check out include the “It’s Never Too Late” touch screen computer where they engage with others, a virtual scrapboooking program, Skype, an Internet phone call with visual capabilities or they can just play games.”We have one man that comes every week (in Beverly) and plays chess,” said Bulkley.They can even take a virtual bike ride.Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy gamely stepped up to what looked like an encased wheel with pedals on either side but instead of using her feet she slipped her hands through to loops and began to pump with her arms. On screen an image of Lynn Shore Drive began to whip by.Council on Aging Director Stacy Minchello said she is already taking advantage of the virtual scrapbooking program.”We have (seniors) bring in their pictures and their memories, and we scan them into the computer and tell the story of their lives,” she said.Crowley said he feels the program has enormous potential for engaging seniors and starting dialogues that could lead to solving problems. He also believes that if the kiosk works the way he hopes it will reduce the cost of health care by 10 percent to 20 percent.”They won’t be running back and forth to the emergency room all the time because they won’t be eating a pound of donuts sitting alone in a room,” he said. “They’ll be out talking to people ? and solving what’s going on in their life one on one, one little bit at a time.”Library Director Therese Hurley said she jumped at the chance to have the program, which is funded by the National Center on Senior Transportation, New Freedoms Initiative of the Federal Transit Administration and the North Shore Community Health Network, in the library.”We are very excited and immediately saw the connection and what it offers to our community,” she said. “We hope to see it flourish in the wider community.”Chris Stevens can be reached at [email protected].