Aging Better With Art: Low-Income Seniors Thrive in Artists Colony

By Good News Network Friday, August 17, 2012

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Tim Carpenter is changing the way elderly Californians experience aging by turning low-cost senior housing communities into vibrant centers for learning and creativity.

His serious arts training doesn't just provide for later life, it enhances it.

The 13-year-old Los Angeles-area program, EngAGE, provides arts, theater and wellness classes for some 5,000 people — the vast majority of them low-income — living in senior apartment communities.

EngAGE also was the driving force behind The Burbank Senior Artists Colony, a first-of-its-kind 141-unit senior apartment community that offers art and creativity, featuring a theater group, independent film company, fine arts collective, music program, intergenerational arts program with the Burbank Unified School District and the following amenities for artists in their second 50 years of creativity: 60-seat Theatre, Arts Studios, Music Performance Spaces, Computer Media Arts Center, Digital Filmmaking Lab, Outdoor Performance Areas, Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden.

(WATCH the video below, and read the story in the New York Times)