Hello and welcome to living in the Lehigh Valley, where our focus is your health and wellness.

I'm your host, Brittany Sweeney.

A sage once said Youth is a gift of nature.

Age is a work of art that sort of sets the tone for this episode.

On creative Aging, which is the name of an arts Quest program for seniors.

Here to tell us more about it is our own Grover Silcox.

Grover, always great to see you.

Great to be here.

I happened to be one of those works of art.

You are quite the work of art, for sure.

And this sounds like a really engaging program.

It really is.

Arts Quest is partnering with other nonprofit organizations in the Lehigh Valley to provide the Creative Aging program, which is essentially a variety of high quality arts activities for seniors held in various locations throughout the valley.

That sounds really fun.

It really, really is.

And I got to go to one and see for myself.

Very cool.

So what did you find out?

it's fabulous.

One that I went to was being held at the Lehigh University Art Galleries, which by the way, is a hidden treasure.

And the seniors got a guided tour of the of the exhibits and an art making activity led by one of art's quests, teaching artists.

So it was really cool.

Really, really neat.

Really is.

The Creative Aging program is meant to help seniors stay active and engaged in their communities.

We visited as Art's Quest held a creative aging activity, as I mentioned, at Lehigh University's Art Galleries in Bethlehem.

It's an amazing gallery, and I was struck by how engaged the participants were asking questions and sharing observations with the galleries guides throughout the tour.

The seniors also got to create their own works of art under the direction of arts.

Quest teaching artist Monica Salazar.

The folks who participate added left, energized, informed and pleased by the program.

It's really, really important when you're retired to be engaged, you must be engaged with people.

You must be engaged with different things, different opportunities, different ways to learn.

You can't have your mind stagnant.

It just makes you older.

This makes you younger.

These older adults eagerly arrived at Lehigh University Art Galleries on the Lehigh campus in South Bethlehem.

And so this body of work is called This Empty World.

They came to enjoy the works of art and to participate in a bit of art making themselves.

The activity was part of the creative aging program offered by Arts Quest and its partners in the Lehigh Valley.

Just kind of bringing in the older adults community to public spaces, especially art, because we understand how impactful that can be.

So the Creative Aging Program is a program for older adults based on art enrichment.

So we had older adults coming from the YMCA, from eastern Bethlehem and Nazareth join us today.

They got a tour from one of the student educators here at Lehigh, and then they did art making activity with our teaching artist, Monica Salazar.

We try to bring these programs out to the community.

We are glad to be with our pilot program.

We're just getting started and we hope that you pass that information on to others.

We were the first location for a pilot partnership between the United Way of the Lehigh Valley Healthy Aging Initiative, Arts Quest, The YMCA and the Lehigh University Art Galleries.

And so today was a wonderful opportunity to bring older adults to the gallery that may not have known that we are here as a space that is open and free to the community.

According to the CDC, new research suggests, quote, For older adults staying engaged in enjoyable activities is associated with better physical and mental health, and that being involved with others is strongly associated with better brain function, unquote.

As soon as they arrived today, we threw them right into conversation maps, looking at works of art and having a discussion together about what they see.

They made these wonderful connections to the works of art they were seeing.

They enjoyed conversing together and sharing that.

I think that idea of a lived experience and what you can bring to a conversation is wonderful when working with older adults, your own imagination or feelings, whatever you can create.

I think they really brought that into the art making experience, sharing ideas or sharing techniques.

And so all around, I think from being inspired by works of art by other artists and then to creating their own, it was a wonderful group to work with today.

For these older adults, creating art is more than just fun.

According to the National Institute on Aging, Studies show that participating in the arts may also create a path to healthy aging.

This is so wonderful.

Amazing.

I'm excited.

As a retired person, I think that interacting with other people, it's important for my mental health, my physical health.

My husband had a heart attack, so we go to the Y.

We try to go at least three times a week.

We don't have nothing much to do during the day because my grandson is in school.

So we go sign up for this program to do something besides sitting at home.

My wife passed away in December, but, you know, I still like to be around people who, you know, encourages me and I encourage them that, you know, therefore, you don't have to be all by yourself.

These older adults, like so many, share years of experience and the desire for continuous learning in the company of peers and people of all ages.

And that's what the creative aging program aims to enable.

So that was the United Way YMCA and the Wag Arts class kind of bringing, you know, who are you going together to make this event possible?

The group that we had today, really, they were engaged.

They were asking a lot of questions.

The teaching artist, Monica Salazar, just did an amazing job working through that with them with like the activity that they had prepared with this filled life.

So I think overall it was a success.

While this program is not open to the public directly, many folks will get access to it through organizations in the region that serve seniors.

This is really, really cool.

GROVER So what other programs or activities do they have planned?

Well, future creative aging activities include cemetery drawing, clay sculptures and mural making.

Really, really cool.

I love seeing all of their artwork and seeing it come into fruition.

It really is.

Seniors I met really enjoyed their rep, you know, the time doing.

I'm sure they did.

What a wonderful way to stay active and engaged.

Right.

Very cool.

All right, Grover, as always, thank you so much for joining us.

My pleasure.

That'll do it for this edition of Living in the Lehigh Valley.

I'm Brittany Sweeney, hoping you stay happy and healthy.