Welcome back to Getting your Edge how to Right Size your Home and Life podcast. I'm your co-host, Dennis Day, and I'm here with my other co-host, Judy Gratton. Welcome, Welcome. And our guest today is Nathan Phillips from the North Shore Senior Center. He is the director of one of the largest maybe the largest, one of the largest senior centers in the country, and he's here to talk about the dynamic programs that the senior center offer. And so let's get into the questions. Nathan, can you share?
Judy Gratton:Hi Dennis.
Dennis Day:Hi, judy, thanks. Oh, you want to do a little introduction of who you are. Let's do that. Thanks, dennis, I'm.
Nathan Philips:Nathan Phillips, I'm the CEO of the North Shore Senior Center here in the North Shore Senior Center here in the North Shore part of North King County, south Nahomish County, serving the communities Bothell and Kirkland and Kenmore and Woodinville and Mill Creek.
Judy Gratton:You said to me when we were talking that our senior center is nationally. We're the busiest.
Nathan Philips:One of the largest in the country. Yeah, you know most senior centers. There are a lot of senior centers that are like municipally operated and a lot of are kind of neighborhood based. There are fewer in the country that kind of operate larger centers as we do, Because we have our main campus in Bothell and then also our satellite locations in Kenmore and in Mill Creek locations in Kenmore and in Mill Creek. And what kind of sets North Shore apart is founders of North Shore really focused on serving the whole entire senior community. They got very ambitious and were very dedicated and built this huge facility, this great facility we have in Bothell, and it's two buildings, and so we're able to just we're a regional senior center so we're able to provide a whole array of services.
Dennis Day:Can you share a little history and the evolution of the senior center? What factors contribute to the status as the busiest in the country? Thanks, dennis, I'm happy to.
Nathan Philips:You know I can't take much credit for it. North Shore has been around for 50 years and I've been here over 50 years. I've been here about two years. But North Shore kind of got started with some community volunteers who in the 70s came together to advocate for some space and some programs for older adults and they turned out to be a pretty powerful group over the years really worked to provide a regional resource for our older adults in these communities we now have, thanks to tremendous volunteer power and wise guidance over the years, we now are a nonprofit organization operating our main campus in Bothell and we also have some smaller satellites in Kenmore and in Mill Creek and we're serving about 4,500 people every year and we have an array of programs doing all sorts of creative things to kind of make those services snappy.
Dennis Day:I was wondering how do you measure? Is it the number of people through the door or as busiest?
Nathan Philips:Well, one of the reasons we say we're one of the largest is because there's no agreed upon way to measure it. Okay, all right, we just know, on square footage and the number of people we serve, that we're one of the largest.
Dennis Day:Is North Shore dependent on any government funds? You know about?
Nathan Philips:a little over half of our budget is actually government contracts. About half our budget is government contracts. We're an independent nonprofit but we contract with state and local and county entities to provide services in the community.
Judy Gratton:My son is disabled and the Special Olympics group, the Wranglers. The city of Woodinville wasn't able to accommodate them anymore and they fell under the umbrella that allowed them to come to the North Shore Senior Center. And they still. North Shore Senior Center still supports that Special Olympics group today but they have like adult daycare for people with disabilities. They do bowling, they do basketball I'm not sure what some of the other programs they have and those people are all ages.
Nathan Philips:Our name is Senior Center, but we have a lot of programs that are available to anyone in the community. In fact, our members range in age from age 12 to 109. This goes to show you what older adults are capable of.
Judy Gratton:So can you tell us what some of the other services are that are offered by the North Shore Senior Center?
Nathan Philips:Sure, judy, you talked a little bit about a program that your son's a part of. So working with younger people with disabilities provide programming in the community, especially around Special Olympics. We work not just with those individuals but also their families that are coping and navigating service systems. We try to serve the broad array of older adults in the community especially so we have everything from arts programs to fitness programs, ranging from chair yoga all the way up to a very aggressive pickleball program. We have an exercise gym and weightlifting. We have clubs, card games, pool table absolutely yeah tea parties, dance classes, variety bands, music programming, educational programming. We have a whole team of social workers and wellness providers. We provide a bunch of social services. We have our own transportation fleet, so we subcontract with King County Metro to provide accessible transportation in the region. There's a lot of stuff we do. We have about 300 different programs we offer at North Shore.
Judy Gratton:It is amazing. And then you didn't mention the food bank. I know there's a food bank there.
Nathan Philips:You know we have. So we have a food pantry that really took off Well, actually food pantries at Bothell and in Kenmore that really took off during the pandemic, mostly supported by community donations. And folks in community often will donate pet food as well, and so we also make that available through our food pantry program.
Judy Gratton:And one of the other things that I think is, at least for local people, really important to know, and we've utilized it more than once. You have wheelchairs, bath chairs, toilet chairs when people have surgery, that sort of thing that they check out for free. Yes, for free.
Nathan Philips:They check out for free.
Judy Gratton:Yes, for free and it's crutches canes. It's amazing People have donated those, I believe.
Nathan Philips:But it's a wonderful service that you offer to the community. Yeah, that one, I mean it has the really clunky name of durable medical equipment. Okay, thank you. But you're right, judy, it's the stuff that people need when they're going through different health challenges or recuperations or rehabilitation. It's great to be able to have those to loan out to the community, because people often just need them for a temporary time. We also have an occupational therapist on staff, and so it's useful to be able to come in and say you know, what kind of walker do I need, and can I try a couple out for a few days to see which one works best? Yeah, it's cool to be able to provide that.
Judy Gratton:See, I learned something new. I've been showing up at the Senior Center for Odds and Ends for probably the last 30 some odd years. That's how long I knew that it was around. But it expanded and you built the second building, the health. Is it called the Health Center? Health and Wellness, health and?
Judy Gratton:health and wellness center, yeah and the unique thing about the senior center is surrounded by senior housing. There are lots of communities that I think built right there because, because the senior center was there, it is. It's really a busy, vibrant place yeah, it's fun to be here.
Nathan Philips:People walk in and they often say but you don't sound like a senior center. You do this often noisy and raucous in here. You know we have a Especially on Wednesdays at noon Pie day, and so, yeah, we have some volunteer pie bakers who come in and make some pies from scratch on Wednesdays.
Judy Gratton:Amazing pies.
Nathan Philips:Yeah.
Judy Gratton:They sell it for like $5 a slice, I think $3.50,.
Nathan Philips:actually it's a steal.
Judy Gratton:And it's fun because there's a whole group of bikers. We have a bike trail, walking and bike trail not too far from that senior center and they all come in their helmets and their bike gear and they all line up out the door to get pie.
Nathan Philips:Yeah, there's a lot. The number of people that fall under the label of senior, whether they like it or not, is huge, vast and diverse, and so that also describes what we do at the Senior Center, everything from cycling clubs to everything else.
Judy Gratton:So yeah, you were telling me last week about the history of the term seniors and how huge that group is now. Can you tell, yeah, Judy, thanks for asking.
Nathan Philips:It's something I've been doing a lot of research on and we've been thinking about at the Cedar Center as we're trying to think 10 and 15 years into the future about what North Shore needs to be. Then we're also looking 50 and 60 and 70 years backwards and the history of the word Cedar is actually really interesting. Popular usage in the 1950s because for the first time ever there was this small group of people who were surviving working age and they actually got to do things like retire. And so all of a sudden there's this new little group of people that are surviving working age and senior became a marketing term that marketers use to describe them. At the same time there's also these younger people that were emerging that had a little purchasing power. So teenager and senior actually were invented in the 50s, about the same time.
Nathan Philips:If you think about it, in the 50s, just tiny little sliver of the population that's surviving working age, but that's the time when a lot of our senior serving institutions were built and that's when, like, our programs were built and our retirement rules were kind of recorded. What has changed is people are living much, much longer. Life expectancy globally almost doubled during the 20th century and people in their 80s are the fastest growing demographic, not only locally but worldwide. So now, if you look at people that are kind of like that 55 and older there's three very distinct generations, very different generations, in that category, and there soon will be four, because people are continuing to live longer and are living healthier longer. In fact, population experts tell us the first person to live to be 150 has already been born. So if you think about what a senior center does, it used to serve this liver of the population and now it's serving 20, 25% of the population and how have you adapted those services as a result of these different generations that you're providing services to?
Nathan Philips:Judy, it's a great question and you know what senior centers around the country have really struggled with this and I've felt many of them felt like they had to choose, like what part of the senior community they're serving. We've tried. In fact a lot of senior centers have kind of rebranded and taken the word senior out of their name because they're trying. You know, a lot of people don't identify with that term anymore.
Nathan Philips:At North Shore we're keeping it but at the same time we're making sure that we're serving seniors, people with disabilities and their families, and so that's pretty much everybody. And we're making sure that we have a variety of programs that meet people's needs throughout the aging process. So we have some athletes, hikers, bikers, avid ballplayers, that kind of come here to do stuff. But as people go through the aging process and physical limitations start to set in, we also have programs that kind of help people as they're transitioning to less impactful activities, for example. And then finally, as people need more and more care, we have our adult day health program for people with chronic conditions and more pronounced limitations, physical limitations. That kind of helps people through the very end of that aging process. We're trying to offer stuff up on all fronts.
Judy Gratton:We are so lucky to have you in this area. First of all, I'd love for you to talk about seniors and employment. It's becoming more difficult, as someone over 60, to be considered employable.
Nathan Philips:Yeah, judy, it's very interesting as people are living longer. Do you remember the old game of life where you'd spin a dial and you'd try to add some little blue and pink pegs into your little car and try to be a lawyer or something, and then you get to the finish line? You just have to look around to our own families and just know that that doesn't work anymore. There's really less and less of a finish line in life at the retirement age. People are continuing to work longer, participating in the economy in vibrant ways longer past retirement age. The average age of an Uber driver right now is 52, I think People are picking up different kinds of jobs in the regular economy and then kind of in the irregular economy.
Nathan Philips:Also, I recommend the book called the Super Age by Bradley Sherman. He really goes through a lot of this research on how people are participating in the economy well into their 80s, 90s and beyond. He kind of makes the case that smart employers are the ones who are figuring out how to build multi-generational teams. If you're not really thinking about how to do that, then you're missing out on a huge and very skilled part of the workforce. To do that, then you're missing out on a huge and very skilled part of the workforce and so building intergenerational teams, taking on ageism in the workplace and really recognizing the earning power and spending power of older adults. It's just a smart place for businesses to be.
Judy Gratton:Thank you for bringing that up. You know, because it is. I qualify as senior and there are definite shifts in perspective when people talk to you. It irritates me when someone asks me if I'm retired. They just make an assumption that I'm parking it somewhere and that's yeah.
Nathan Philips:In this presentation I do for a lot of service clubs and city councils and chambers of commerce. I put up a picture of the Golden Girls sitcom and then also a picture of the Sex and the City reboot show that's on right now. I asked people what those two shows have in common. People look at those pictures and they don't know. Those were both shows about what women do in their 50s. That was kind of the age that they were portraying, because that's what women in their 50s did a generation ago. Is they figured out what their senior housing setups were going to be? So our society has much different expectations of what people are doing as they age now and those are going to continue to grow and so you can't just look around for people who may appear older to you and make assumptions about what they're capable of.
Dennis Day:COVID made the socialization of people. Everyone became acutely aware of the need and that does the same for seniors. Aware of the need and that does the same for seniors. Can you talk about some of the socialization that goes on and how the Senior Center fosters that community feel?
Nathan Philips:Yeah, I mean, one of our main purposes as a Senior Center is to tackle social isolation and reduce it. Of course that got really hard during the pandemic. All of us were isolating and it was interesting after the pandemic when the Senior Center was closed for 14 months and when we reopened I think there was a little bit of an assumption that people were banging on the door ready to come back, and that was true for some people. But a lot of people really kind of got into their groove a little bit across all age groups of kind of into their own isolated kind of circumstances. And we're still working with people who are struggling to come back out of that isolation.
Nathan Philips:But we try to actively. We have support groups for people who are kind of feeling alone and want to be part of conversation groups, so some kind of explicit programs we run for people to get connected. We also kind of sneak connection in to a lot of the programs we run. You know we learned long ago from marketing information that people will very rarely sign up for something that is supposed to help them make friends. No one wants to sign up for that.
Nathan Philips:Oh yeah, I'm going to sign up for this make a friend program At the same time when people do sign up for this make a friend program. At the same time when people do sign up for something and they're enjoying it and you ask them why number one or two reasons they'll say why they enjoy something is because the people they've met and then they're doing it with, and so creating community becomes a real part of just about everything we do, in fact, especially with older dudes. Julie, you mentioned earlier our pool table because the way we are built, men tend to have struggle more about building social connections as they're older. So one of the way we are built, men tend to have struggle more about building social connections as they're older. So one of the reasons we have a free pool table sitting in our lobby or right off our lobby is because men feel a little more comfortable coming in to shoot a game of pool and talking to people. So that ends up being a way to kind of create community just around the pool table Very passive.
Dennis Day:Are you working and collaborating with local organizations or businesses to enhance the services you provide?
Nathan Philips:You know, the local business community has always been a huge supporter of North Shore Senior Center, so we have businesses that will sponsor some of our activities from time to time, promote our work in the business community. A lot of businesses will do food drives for us to help keep our food pantry stocked. We're a member of the chamber. The local chambers have been awesome about recognizing the importance of their nonprofit partners nonprofit businesses in the community too, and so we've kind of worked together as a business community to kind of make sure that North Shore services are well supported. As a business community, to kind of make sure that North Shore services are well supported.
Dennis Day:How about transportation? A lot of our folks they don't have to be seniors can't drive. How can they get there?
Nathan Philips:Yeah, it's interesting Transportation and mobility end up being really big issues for people as they age, and the folks that are kind of rolling into that aging category now folks who are like 50 to 70, are showing an appetite for a much wider range of transportation options. As they're aging, they're looking for more transportation amenities, more demand for walkable communities, more demand for senior-friendly bike lanes.
Judy Gratton:Do we have any of those?
Nathan Philips:Berk Hillman Trail. It can be dangerous. Yeah, it's interesting to see the range of things that older adults are now looking for for transportation. You know we run a transportation program that helps subtle people to and from medical appointments, activities at the senior center just household grocery shopping, things like that.
Judy Gratton:So we have to get to the senior center in order to take advantage of that service.
Nathan Philips:No, it is a service that we can provide. We're funded by some local cities and then also by King County to do some of this transportation programming, also by King County to do some of this transportation programming. In general. We can't drive everybody in town everywhere they need to go, so we focus on folks who have the most mobility limitations, folks with disabilities or mobility restrictions and for most critical services. But we can often help people find the transportation resources they need. It's interesting North Shore is big but we also straddle a county line.
Dennis Day:I know.
Nathan Philips:So trying to work both sides Homish and King County. It's not like we all live on one side and never go on the other side. We're living in a community that straddles the line and so trying to weave together and braid together resources that support things like transportation on both sides of the county line can be tricky, but we'll keep working on ways to do it.
Judy Gratton:Now, how about technology? I can remember computers first came out. People were coming into the senior center trying to figure out how to work on a computer. What does that look like today?
Nathan Philips:You know, judy, thanks both of you for asking. It's a tough question that we're wrestling too. You're right. The Senior Center used to offer technology classes and we used to have a little technology lab that we ran. The need for that over time has really changed and we're trying to understand what the best way to help address the technology gap might be.
Nathan Philips:A lot of times when folks are, can we have a few volunteers who will work with people on technology questions? We found the old technology class just doesn't work anymore. People don't want to come in and sit down in a class to try and learn something often. But they will come in with a cell phone often more often cell phones than computers and need help getting an app going or fixing something that's gone wrong. One-on-one technology assistance is really tough to provide and to pay for, so we're looking at a few models to try and see if there's some things we can't scale up. But I'll also tell you people make assumptions about seniors and technologies that aren't necessarily true. I actually get more complaints at the North Shore Senior Center about us not being tech savvy enough than I do, about us relying on technology too much. I've had a few phone calls, people calling us ageist because our website isn't savvy enough to tackle what they're hoping to do.
Judy Gratton:And they call you ageist.
Nathan Philips:Yep, and that's fair. We can be doing better. We have just as many tech savvy seniors as we do tech adverse seniors, and we need to make sure we're serving them all well.
Dennis Day:Now a lot of seniors are also caregivers maybe a spouse, a child or a parent. Do you have any resources that are helping these people out, the caregivers?
Nathan Philips:Yeah, we do and we focus. You know, one of our values as an organization is we really look at holistic services, not just the older adult that shows up in front of us, but their whole system. That kind of keeps them going and keeps them independent. But their whole system that kind of keeps them going and keeps them independent. One of my favorite success stories is we have several support groups that support caregivers.
Nathan Philips:We had one woman who has been a longtime caregiver for her husband with dementia.
Nathan Philips:She came to one of our been part of one of our support groups.
Nathan Philips:She noticed some deterioration in her own health because she's a sole caregiver.
Nathan Philips:She was wise enough to ask for help when she realized that her health was declining and we were able to kind of match her up with one of our social service programs that Evergreen Health helps us operate and had a one-on-one session with her where she was able to kind of find a yoga routine that worked for her and some self-care regimes that actually helped her regain her health and helped her realize that she's not doing her husband any favors if she is caring for him all the time to the extent that it's denigrating her own health. So she was able to find a way to kind of take care of herself, regain her health, get to a place where she was, and she just feels like a program like this is so impactful because it not only really helped her but it helped her, help her husband and keep them both independent in the community. So it's great to hear success stories like that. If we're not thinking about support systems around people as they age, then we're really neglecting the real solution.
Judy Gratton:When you and I were talking last week, I mentioned to you my husband had just had knee replacement surgery and he was having a real issue sleeping and you suggested maybe it was one of those programs.
Nathan Philips:Yeah.
Judy Gratton:What was that called?
Nathan Philips:We operate. One of the evidence-based programs we run is called Pants Wellness.
Judy Gratton:That's it and he did go and he actually has another meeting with the person today.
Nathan Philips:Oh, Judy, I'm so glad to hear that.
Judy Gratton:You know a little bit at a time about what that program is.
Nathan Philips:Typically we typically it's just one. We have a social worker and wellness nurse.
Judy Gratton:That he's talking to.
Nathan Philips:Great, yeah, that can be so impactful. Just, you know, we often think of like healthcare as being one like where you go through the doors of your doctor's office or the hospital doors and then everything else we could think of as kind of like separate than that. But really there are things you can do that just accessing a little bit more information and a little bit more coaching can really prevent so many health issues and really promote so much better well-being, that kind of prevent those health care emergencies that emerge down the road.
Judy Gratton:Is there a cost for that particular program? I know there are for some of the classes and they're very minimal.
Nathan Philips:We try to keep all of our like our art programs, our fitness programs, everything, all the games, games clubs. We try to keep all of our art programs, our fitness programs, everything, all the games, games clubs. We try to keep those pretty affordable. But for those evidence-based programs, thanks to Evergreen Health, we're able to provide those for free. That's wonderful. They recognize the value of those to their systems and are able to help. They support us in making sure we keep those available to the community.
Judy Gratton:My husband's going, I'm not paying attention.
Dennis Day:Nathan, do you have a social worker on your staff and if, so what do they do?
Nathan Philips:We have a few operating in different capacities. One social worker specifically works at our adult day health program when people are reaching that kind of stage of the aging process. That social worker is available to help the family and caregivers kind of work through their plan of care and work on adaptions to it as the care needs evolve, and so that's a really important social work program. We also have a social worker on staff that really just does kind of social service connections, community resource kind of person. So when folks like they have a question about how do I find out more information about Snohomish County's or King County's property tax program for seniors, kind of help connect people in the right direction and as aware resources in the community. And then those social services programs, support groups we also have social workers that are attached to those too. Just to make, just to kind of. Since they're evidence-based, we want to make sure that we're providing them according to the model.
Dennis Day:So, as the director, what do you see biggest challenges facing seniors for the future? What are the challenges and what steps are you taking to meet the challenge?
Nathan Philips:I think it's both a challenge and an opportunity.
Nathan Philips:But, as we mentioned earlier that what falls under that label of senior is really changing, Much more culturally diverse and racially diverse, much more economically diverse.
Nathan Philips:There are seniors wealthy seniors today are wealthier than seniors have ever been in the history of the world and low-income seniors are more challenged than any group of seniors have ever been in the history of the world.
Nathan Philips:So you're really seeing this wide array of what falls under that label senior. So we've started doing some partnerships with cultural organizations to offer culturally specific programs at the senior center that bring in elders and even intergenerational families into the senior center. So we're making sure we're serving seniors across different cultures and ethnic groups. We're also really doubling down on programs for folks who have kind of modest incomes or even very low incomes, making a lot of programs free and available at a very low cost. We're also doing some programs that are a little bit more expensive but also appeal to folks who have means and are really looking for that social connection and lifelong learning. So we're trying to make sure that we're adapting to what a senior, what used to be a monolithic senior community, is very, very different now. So we're trying to make sure that we're keeping our ears to the ground and adapting.
Judy Gratton:When I was much younger I got the opportunity to live in Japan for two years and the Japanese community at least at that time. I don't know if it's still true, but the eldest son inherited the family home along with the parents. You know, there was kind of like you get the home but you're also going to get us as long as we're alive. So the parents were always taken care of by the eldest son or along those lines. They didn't have to worry about it because they were going to be taken care of by their children. And I know other cultures pretty much have like multi-generational families living in the homes, but we've never done that in this country not very much anyway to my knowledge. So it's really important that we have services like yours that seniors can connect to.
Nathan Philips:It's really interesting to be working with seniors and families across different cultures because there are very different approaches. You know, there are some communities that absolutely just revere and are very present in the lives of their elders. There are other communities where that just isn't available we work with because of a lot of cultural or a lot of discrimination over years. A lot of LGBTQ seniors actually have very tend to have fewer resources available. They've faced a lot of employment discrimination in their lives. They often have been ostracized from families years ago and so they have fewer supports. And so, thinking through from different cultures and backgrounds and groups, what are the services that we can provide to kind of make sure people have what they need?
Judy Gratton:I'm impressed, I'm very impressed. I've learned things. I knew it was big and I knew you did a lot and I knew you helped a lot of people. I had no idea of the thinking that has to go into it to try and continue to broaden the services that you offer to as many people as you can offer it to, so no one is excluded.
Nathan Philips:We don't do it alone, though, dennis and Judy. It's people like you that kind of keep telling us what you're hearing in the community too, that kind of keep us informed, and we take suggestions very seriously, and so we've been around a long time because the community has been very clear and open with what it needs, and so we do this together as a team.
Judy Gratton:Well, we thank you very much for taking time out of your busy day to be here with us and share that with people all over the place.
Nathan Philips:I'm happy to be here. Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Dennis Day:Well, thank you so much for coming, happy to be here. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Well, thank you so much for coming. I realize you've got such a busy center so active and that giving us 45 minutes to an hour of time is really. We sincerely appreciate that and hopefully our listeners will get some insights onto what senior centers can offer. If they were interested in the North Shore Senior Center, what would they do to find out?
Nathan Philips:To find us Well. North Shore Senior Center. The easiest place to start is our website, which is northshoreseniorcenterorg Dumbled over that Northshoreseniorcenterorg. Northshoreseniorcenterorg Dumbled over that NorthshoreSeniorCenterorg. It's also very easy just to give us a call at 425-487-2441. We have a whole staff of wonderful volunteers who love talking about what we do here, who answer our phones.
Judy Gratton:And so people can give us a call. Don't you do lunch every day?
Nathan Philips:Oh man, at Bothell we have an awesome lunch. Partner with Sound Generations to offer a community dining program. So we have about 40 or 50 folks here every day having an awesome lunch that our chef prepares.
Judy Gratton:And then there's also a program that they can find online, or they can actually pick up a hard copy there at the front desk, if they come in right.
Nathan Philips:We publish a catalog every quarter with all of our offerings in it Well, most of our offerings in it and you can pick up a hard copy or we can mail one to you. There's also an electronic copy on our website. So end of June we'll have a new catalog out for July, august and September.
Dennis Day:Well, thanks again, nathan. We really appreciate you being here. You have a dynamic place and you even have some satellites for people who want to go to someplace that's even a little closer to their residence. So thank you, nathan Phillips from the North Shore Senior Center for being here. Thank you, judy. That's it for Getting your Edge how to Right-Size your Home and Life podcast. We are the downsizing experts, so go to our website If you have want information about downsizing at wwwedgegroupteamcom. Thanks so much, everyone. Bye, bye-bye.