New York: New Creative Aging Initiative

A Lifetime Arts Creative Aging watercolor class is taught by teaching artist Josh Millis at New York Public Library. Photo by Herb Scher

The New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Office for the Aging recently partnered to launch a new Creative Aging Initiative. The program takes an innovative, evidence based approach to healthy aging, underscoring New York as the first state in the nation recognized by AARP as part of its Age-Friendly Communities network. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the launch of a three-region Creative Aging Initiative that will provide hands-on art-making programs that support comprehensive physical and mental health benefits for older New Yorkers and combat social isolation.

The program will be administered by Lifetime Arts and will build on a successful 2017 New York State Council on the Arts-Monroe County Office of the Aging arts programming pilot in Rochester that delivered services in four senior centers citywide. Beginning as a pilot in spring 2020, the new initiative will serve up to 500 older adults at up to 12 senior centers and libraries throughout Long Island, the Capital Region and the North Country. The initiative will also create jobs for professional teaching artists, who will lead hands-on skill-building workshops in a variety of creative disciplines, building on extensive research demonstrating the role of the arts in improving health outcomes for older adults. Find out more about this initiative by contacting New York State Council on the Arts Executive Director Mara Manus or Director of Public Information Ronni Reich.