Growing Bolder Digital Digest | Grandpad October 2022: Community

Community

Vitale on and His Journey Beating Cancer

We’re all told the same debilitating lie that aging is an inevitable decline into disease and disability. Fountain of Youth®, a new podcast from Growing Bolder in partnership with the National Senior Games Association, smashes the negative stereotypes of aging and delivers life-transforming lessons for us all.

by masters athlete, Emmy Award-winning broadcaster, and Growing Bolder CEO Marc Middleton, Fountain of Youth shares the inspiring stories of men and women of all ages, sizes, and abilities who are redefining what’s possible and living active, engaged lives into their 80s 90s, and 100s.

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IN EVERY ISSUE

YOUR TAKE

NOTE FROM THE CEO

GROWING BOLDER WITH

ORDINARY PEOPLE LIVING

LIVES

LIFELONG LEARNING

Top Five Apps To Find Community

RECIPE

Heart Healthy Alaskan Bowl

THE TAKEAWAY

Mitch Albom

HEALTH

CONNECTING FOR OUR HEALTH How To Find True Wellness In Community

THE POWER OF THE TRIBE How Community Boosts Immunity And Helps Us Live Longer, Healthier Lives

DEFY

WALKING FORWARD

A Grieving Mother Finds Peace And Community Along The Camino De Santiago

CAREGIVING

THE ART OF CAREGIVING An Online Summit That Delivers a Caregiving Message Unlike Any Other

FINANCES

THE POWER OF PLANNING

Ways an Elder Law Attorney Can Assist You

YOUR TAKE

what groups or organizations have you found the most community?

"Groups of people who love to dance."

L.

Widows Club."

E. J.

"My home temple, Makom Ohr Shalom."

L. S.

"Harry Potter fandom."

H. W.

"My church and a card playing group."

M.

by

organizations."

A. W. P.

app."

F.

"Black Lives Matter."

W.

Where we live is now one of the most significant determinants of overall health outcomes and life expectancy. Our zip code has become a better predictor of our overall wellbeing than our genetic code.

The many reasons for this include access to healthy foods, great healthcare, safe environments, quality education, lots of greenspace, and a community of support and encouragement. This month’s Growing Bolder Digital Digest celebrates community.

Communities are not just the places we live. There are statewide, national, and global communities formed around shared passions and purpose. Our cover story this month is about Dick Vitale who is a major player in the national community to fund pediatric cancer research. We visited Dick at his home just outside of Sarasota where he was very candid about what has been one of the most difficult years of his life. At 83-years-old, Vitale has emerged from a year filled with one serious health challenge after another more determined than ever to make a difference for the community he’s dedicated his life to.

Communities can be a catalyst for personal growth and wellbeing. They can boost our self-esteem, enhance our personal identity, strengthen our immune system, and enhance our ability to cope with the many challenges of aging. Community is immunity from depression, stress, anxiety, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, obesity, and more.

At Growing Bolder, we’re building a community that’s dedicated to helping you be you. A community that not only encourages you to live a life filled with health and happiness but provides the tools and resources to help. You’ll find that inspiration and those tools and resources in every issue of Growing Bolder.

From the CEO

“Communities are not just the places we live. There are statewide, national, and global communities formed around shared passions and purpose.”

Photo by Mike Dunn for Growing Bolder

Hosted by award-winning broadcaster Marc Middleton, What’s Next! features a team of well-known Florida broadcasters and personalities, including Secily Wilson, Amy Sweezey, and Bill Shafer, all shining the spotlight on ordinary people living extraordinary lives.

What’s Next! is a jolt of inspiration that helps audiences of all ages believe that it’s never too late to pursue their passions and make a difference in their communities.

Father Greg Boyle

68

When Father Greg Boyle became the pastor of Dolores Mission Church it was the poorest parish in Los Angeles with the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. Desiring to help his community, Boyle began working with neighborhood businesses to hire ex-cons and former gang members. In 1988 Boyle founded Homeboy Industries to form their own job training business. Today it is the largest gang intervention, rehab reentry program in the world. Each year approximately 8,000 people go through the doors, trying to reimagine what could be next after leaving prison or abandoning gang life.

In the beginning, the mission was to locate gainful employment for gang members. But once they got to know gang members, Father Boyle says they realized they needed more than jobs. They needed healing.

“In the early days, we had eight gangs at war with each other. So, a lot of shuttle diplomacy, a lot of working with gangs, peace treaties, truces, cease-fires. And that kind of mindset changed for me. I thought, ‘No, it's one gang member at a time.’”

What began with one bakery now includes almost 12 social enterprises, like electronic recycling, a café, and silkscreen and embroidery. Today Homeboy also offers multiple support programs including anger management, mental health services, domestic violence, substance abuse, tattoo removal, and education and legal services. “We’re in the business of second chances,” says Boyle.

“I think if you ask anybody who's gone through recovery, a lot of times they'll say, ‘Well, this is my fifth rehab.’ Relapse happens. And because part of the work is to kind of excavate your wounds and look at stuff that happened to you, that can lead to self-medication, or it can lead to just the abandonment of the process. So, we're sensitive to that.

“In the old days, we'd fret. ‘Maybe he'll come back.’ Now we say, ‘He'll be back because they always do.’ Because once you have a dose of people cherishing you that's so compelling that it always works.”

It’s not just the former gang members who are changed by the work. Homeboy Industries has over 300 volunteers, ranging from doctors, psychiatrists, and therapists to tutors and mentors. Boyle says that when volunteers let go of the desire to make a difference and open up to how they themselves can be changed; a mutuality is created. It’s what he calls kinship.

“If you go to the margins to make a difference, then it's about you and it can't be about me. It has to be about us,” said Boyle. “So, if you go to the margin so that the folks at the margins make me different, well then suddenly it's mutual. It's exquisitely mutual and everybody is inhabiting their truth and their dignity and their nobility.

“Then it's not about saving, fixing, rescuing success, tally sheets of people who have now moved on; it's only about delighting in the person in front of you. And then, just experiencing the kinship and connection between people.”

Radical kinship is the driving force with Homeboy Industries and an idea that easily translates into a way to strengthen our own communities.

“Kinship is we belong to each other. So how do we stand against forgetting that? How do we imagine a circle of compassion and imagine nobody standing outside that circle?” said Boyle. “The human task is to dismantle any barrier that exists that keeps us from each other. We've been so historically reliant on moralism and moralism hasn't kept us moral. It's only kept us from each other. So, you want to bridge any distance there is between us and them. And how do you keep it connected? So that's what kinship is, that we may be one.”

ORDINARY PEOPLE LIVING

Chad Pregracke 47

“What I realized is everybody's a leader, every single one of us. We’re leaders of our own lives and we all have the potential to do great things.”

“You can’t follow your dreams; you have to lead them. So, my advice is to stop dreaming and start doing. I’m proof that you can accomplish so much more than you think.”

If Chad Pregracke says he’s going to do something, believe him. He and the organization he created, Living Lands and Waters, have inspired over 120,000 volunteers to remove 12.8-million pounds of garbage from US waterways through cleanups on 25 different rivers in 21 different states.

“We're not just talking little stuff,” he said. “We're talking about thousands upon thousands of barrels, tires, appliances, sunken boats, cars and all kinds of things.”

As the fourth largest river system in the world, the Mississippi is home to countless species. More than half of the country’s birds visit during annual migrations and one-fourth of all fish species live in the river.

Pregracke grew up along its banks in East Moline, Illinois and watched as the amount of pollution grew. In 1998, at the age of 23, he began picking up trash by himself, piece by piece. He knew it would take an enormous effort to make a significant difference, and he wasn’t afraid to ask the government for help. There was no answer, so he decided it was up to him to lead.

“It took about four years of people telling me no before I got that one person to say, ‘You know what? I like this, I believe in you and let's try to make this happen,’” he said.

Pregracke isn’t a scientist, lobbyist or politician. He is someone who saw a problem and stepped up to do

something about it.

“What I realized is everybody's a leader, every single one of us,” he said. “We’re leaders of our own lives and we all have the potential to do great things.”

Since then, his passion has inspired others to take action, becoming the most impactful river cleanup organization in the world. “I got to stand on the stage at the Kennedy Center and share our message in front of a packed house which included four former U.S. Presidents,” he said. “And I’m just an ordinary guy trying to clean up rivers.”

2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of Living Lands and Waters and although much has been accomplished, Pregracke says they have just scratched the surface. “My wife says I'm addicted to progress, which is not a bad thing because the challenge can be overwhelming. But our rivers are our treasures, and we have to take care of them.”

He has also made his mark on our landscape. Inspired by his wife’s love of trees, Pregracke and his team have planted over 1.4 million trees in yet another grassroots effort to help the environment.

Pregracke is proof that one person can make a difference, and he believes that best of all, you can, too.

“If you care about our rivers, streams, lakes, trees,” he said. “Whatever lights your spark, find an organization that fits, and I can guarantee they need your help. Together, there is no limit on what we can accomplish.”

To learn more about Chad Pregracke’s mission visit livinglandsandwaters.org

Photo

Chad

Top Five Apps To Find Community

Maintaining adult friendships and socializing with others offers a significant health benefit as we age. Having a community can decrease the risk of dementia, heart disease, strokes and more, according to the National Academy of Sciences.

Photo by Halfpoint Images via Getty Images

While it is easy to list the ways that having a community can improve our lives, for many it can be far more difficult to actually find the right community later in life. Luckily, there are now hundreds of new apps and websites designed specifically to create real-world relationships and foster new friendships. Here are five of our favorite apps and sites to find community:

Nextdoor

There may not be an easier way to find common ground with others than by literally having your homes on “common ground." Nextdoor is an app that connects neighbors who live in the same area, functioning as a social platform to share news, tips, photos and live events to meet up with those who live around you.

CitySocializer

You can find a community of people who are into wellness, learning, fitness, creative events and workshops in your area using CitySocializer Set your preferences for the types of events you want to be alerted about, or better yet, sign up as a host and create your own event and start your own community!

BarkHappy

What better way to make new friends than by bringing along man’s best friend? BarkHappy is an app that connects dog owners to meet at dog-friendly locations and events to get outside and make new relationships. With a slogan like “Meet new friends. Go more places. Be happy,” it’s clear that both you and Fido will benefit from a social meet up.

Peanut

There now are many apps that are designed specifically with women in mind. Peanut is a safe space for women to find support with others who are going through specific life stages such as fertility, pregnancy, motherhood and menopause. They aim to “provide access to a community who are there to listen, share information and offer valuable advice.”

Hobify

Hone in on the community that fits your specific passions and hobbies with Hobify. This app seeks to help you “meet new friends who share your interests, because your neighbors are full of talent!” While sorting by the activities you enjoy most, such as yoga, drawing, visiting museums, sports and more, you’ll be connected to live events in your area where you can meet others who share your passions. Plus, Hobify can connect these communities with talented paid professionals to lead classes and demonstrations in the things they love most!

Harvesting Your Health

Heart Healthy Alaskan Bowl

We added the Alaskan Bowl to our Harvest menu as a light lunch option, and now it’s our number-one selling bowl. It includes soba noodles, which are buckwheat and don’t fill you up quickly. The kale blend and pickled veggies give it a punch on the health end along with the salmon, which is finished with an apricot and sweet chili glaze, and always a good go-to for omega-3 fatty acids and protein.

Chef Brittany Driskell is the Director of Culinary for FMK Restaurant Group. The Tifton, GA native is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts — Orlando and is the culinary specialist behind the FMK restaurant menus, creating Harvest restaurant’s menu from scratch. Driskell loves to use her culinary skills and passion to push people to experience new things and new flavors, and to put a smile on customers’ faces as they dine.

Photos by Mike Dunn for Growing Bolder

BOWL

12 oz fresh salmon

10 oz soba noodles

8 oz pickled veggies

6 oz ponzu

1/2 cup kale blend

4 oz apricot glaze

2 tbsp cilantro de-stemmed

APRICOT GLAZE

(yield 23 oz)

2 tbsp lime juice

1/4 cup sweet thai sauce

18 oz jar apricot preserves

PICKLED VEGGIES

(yield 1 quart)

Mix all ingredients in a bowl with a whisk ponzu (japanese dipping sauce) cucumber shredded carrots rice wine vinegar granulated sugar

Slice cucumbers into half-moons and set aside with shredded carrots. Mix remaining ingredients in a bowl until sugar is dissolved. Submerge cucumbers and carrots in liquid, place in a covered container, and chill for 1-2 hours. (Pickling process is a cold process, no heat)

SOBA NOODLES

Bring water to a boil. Add noodles to water and keep noodles moving. *Important to keep the noodles moving as soba noodles are different from regular pasta, they will congeal together quickly. Cook time on one pack of noodles will be roughly 3-4 minutes. Pull from the water and shock in an ice/water bath. As soon as noodles are cooled remove them from the water or they will become oversaturated and mushy.

BUILDING THE DISH

Sear salmon to medium/medium well or grill salmon to medium well/well done. Glaze the salmon with the apricot glaze. Toss the noodles in the ponzu, with the pickled cucumber and kale blend. Place the noodle mixture on the plate or bowl, and the glazed salmon on top.

Makes 2 Servings

Alaskan Bowl

Growing Bolder was excited to learn about a new club in The Villages, the largest retirement community in the world. The club, started by Colleen Cooley, has modeled its mission after Growing Bolder. Here’s part of the club’s official description:

Bolder in The Villages is a social, service, and personal growth club formed to help members live bigger, bolder lives and to seize the opportunity of an entirely new life stage. We believe that growing older is a blessing to be celebrated and an opportunity to be seized. We’re a force for good; a welcoming, supportive, and encouraging community of hope and inspiration. We focus on what unites us and that which we share: the desire to be happy and healthy, to be a positive influence in our community, and to make a difference in the lives of others.

Growing Bolder is supporting the club in several ways including participating in their local service project. The club selects a non-profit organization each month and Growing Bolder produces a video highlighting the services it provides and the help and assistance it needs. Once the video is produced, all club members and Growing Bolder share it across our social media channels to create exposure, goodwill, and ripples of support for the non-profit.

The club selected Your Humane Society SPCA in Lake Panasoffkee for their first service project. Claudia Labbe is the public relations and fundraising chairperson for the large, private, no-kill animal shelter. “We couldn’t function without volunteers,” she says. “They are critical to our ability to serve our community.”

Bolder in The Villages members pitched in to exercise, feed and play with the many dogs and cats in need of a home. They were inspired by the dedication of the staff and volunteers. “It felt good to help out,” says Frank Lancione. “The people at the shelter are really passionate about what they’re doing.” “Their enthusiasm for making a difference is contagious,” says fellow club member, Tweet Coleman. “I’m going to go home and hug my Karma now even more.”

Having purpose is one of the most important keys to healthy and active aging and Growing Bolder is proud to partner with Bolder in The Villages in this unique and purposeful collaboration. If you’d like to see the video that we produced, you can watch it here.

we should start referring to age

Growing Bolder contributors Doro Bush Koch and Tricia Reilly Koch are sisters-in-law who founded the wellness company BB&R, Bright, Bold and Real over a decade and a half ago with a very clear goal: to share with others what they’ve learned about mindfulness and holistic living with the intention that everyone begin to live their best life. Learn more about their retreats, workshops, courses and popular Health Gig podcast at bbrconsulting.us

Connecting For Our Health

How To Find True Wellness In Community

It started with a gesture.

The two of us began our relationship as mothers, sharing our experiences and trying to support one another. When one needed a shoulder, the other offered. When one had a win, the other cheered. We traded stories of frustrations and of successes. After lots of conversations and morning hikes after school dropoff, we felt called to broaden our connections.

Tricia went to school to become a health coach and began sharing what she learned with Doro and then with the wider community of parents around us. Doro began studying mindfulness and sharing those gifts with others. Both of us got such joy out of touching individuals’ lives — hearing their stories and giving them strategies to make powerful changes in their lives — that we decided to found a company to reach out even further.

We've come to understand that true wellness is found in community. The quality of our relationships can have an even more dramatic impact on our lives than what we eat or how much we exercise. And those components can be much richer when we share them with others. Family meals and walks, jogs, or dance classes shared with friends are that much richer and more beneficial to our well-being.

Even just asking a person how they're doing and clarifying that you want to know how they are really doing can help them feel safe and loved, which sets forth a series of chemical reactions in the brain that optimize wellness. These interactions make our nervous system better able to adapt to stressors and to frame things in a positive light.

Many of us learned through the challenges of the pandemic just how much we needed others and how hard it was to be cut off from support systems. This difficulty in maintaining connections took its toll on a lot of people.

We are a social species! It’s more important now than ever to strengthen our ties to others.

We believe so strongly in the importance of community that we have built our business on it. For a dozen years, we have been putting on the Achieving Optimal Health Conference each fall. We loved bringing together people in one space to share a day of inspiring talks and now we are thrilled to take these components and make them available even more widely via an online conference.

If you participate in the event, which will be streamed on October 15th and available also for later viewing, you will hear more about how community has been integral to our parenting, our personal wellness, and our life's work. Everyone who registers will get tips for making a day of it, to have watch parties with healthy snacks.

For those who'd like to make a whole weekend of wellness, we are bringing some of these speakers to a special Foundations of Wellness Experience in-person event in November at Florida’s beautiful Gasparilla Inn. At this unique retreat, we emphasize connections among the participants so that everyone leaves not just with information but with meaningful shared experiences they can draw on for years to come.

We also love the community we've created with our Health Gig podcast where each week we interview a luminary every week and hear their insights on living with joy and purpose.

Even for those of us who are introverts, connection is vital to our well-being. Consider how you can reach out to someone for some shared time in nature or to discuss a book or even an episode of our podcast. You may make a profound difference in someone else's day, and your own, too.

Photo by Ilona

Images

Doro Bush Koch and Tricia Reilly Koch

Walking Forward

A Grieving Mother Finds Peace And Community Along The Camino De Santiago

Each year over 200,000 people traverse a network of routes across Europe convening at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Called the Camino de Santiago, or in English “The Way of St. James,” the pilgrimages reportedly began at the beginning of the 9th century when the remains of Saint James were discovered in Santiago. Then they came to pay homage to the apostle. Today modern-day pilgrims make the trip for a variety of reasons — searching for a new challenge, a spiritual connection, or to immerse themselves in nature for an extended time. The average route is 500+ miles and takes over 30 straight days of walking.

Donna Mina’s Camino calling came three years after her daughter’s death. “I was at a place in my life where I kind of procrastinated my grief,” Mina said. “I really needed some open space and time to be able to think through and just process my life and see what I wanted to do next; what was important, what wasn't.”

The decision made, Mina chose to begin in April, her birth month, ensuring she would be on the way on Mother’s

Day. She bought her plane ticket and began researching. “It is a little intimidating to go to a foreign country by yourself as a woman,” said Mina. “I'm 62. What if I fall? What if something happens? I just kind of worked out the problems and then found the solutions. I got travel insurance. If something happens, I do have an advantage. I speak Spanish, so that was kind of nice.”

Mina also started training. At the time she was the heaviest weight she’d ever been, but she didn’t let that stop her. Through a Camino Facebook group, she found another woman who lived nearby that was traveling to the same starting point on the same date, and they walked together to get ready.

The people who walk the Camino are called pilgrims. It’s a solitary journey experienced with others – others you walk with and others you bunk with in hostels along the way. Donna wouldn’t be traveling alone. She’d have her fellow pilgrims, and she’d also be carrying on her backpack the faces of her daughter and 66 other individuals who died due to opioid addiction.

“When you lose somebody like that, especially a child, you just really want to curl up and die. And so, you wait for a few weeks and then you don't die of natural causes. You're like, ‘Okay, what do I do with the rest of my life?’

“The thought of having to live out your life without that person that you lost, it can be excruciating. Sometimes I'm very positive. I have a lot to live for — my grandkids and my other children. Some people will say, ‘You're so lucky because you have four other children’, but no other children can replace that one child, that one loss.”

Anna was 40 years old when she died, with an 18-yearold daughter and 13-year-old son of her own. The second oldest of Mina’s five children, she suffered from severe depression and anxiety most of her life and eventually became addicted to opioids. Following her death, Mina joined and even helped found grief groups for those mourning the loss of loved ones due to substance abuse, with the mission of shifting the stigma surrounding addiction and lifting the burden of shame that sometimes accompanies their families’ and friends' grief.

“We have parents that cry, that cuss, that yell, and they really say what's on their mind. It's really important to be able to do that and not be judged,” Mina noted. “People keep their grief inside because they're ashamed. Not necessarily ashamed of their child, but ashamed because of the stigma. I've felt it. People will say, ‘Oh my God, you lost your daughter. That's so sad. Was she sick? What happened?’ And you tell them, they're like, ‘Oh.’

“You just see it on their face, you hear it in their voice, that for some reason, because of the way I lost her, her reason for living is diminished. She got what she deserved. It was a choice. It's like they don't treat it like a mental illness. They don't treat it like a disease. A lot of education needs to be done.”

Into Light Project is a national non-profit organization

dedicated to changing the conversation about drug addiction by creating public exhibitions of original charcoal portraits and individual stories of people who have died from the disease. Anna’s portrait was one of the 41 individuals included in the Florida Into Light exhibit, which was featured in the Orange County Regional History Center in 2022. Following the exhibit, Mina approached Into Light founder Theresa Clower about creating a walking exhibit and carrying the faces of those lost to substance use disorder (SUD) with her. Clower agreed and provided Mina with scans of the individual portraits she had drawn.

“I found somebody on Etsy that could take those pictures and put them into patches. So then, I thought, ‘Okay, how can I do this?’ Theresa sent me the digital file. I ordered a patch for each of the people in the exhibit, and I got a patch with Velcro on it, then I put them on my backpack. It says, ‘Ask me about Anna. Ask me about John.’

“My next thing was to go through their bios and really get to know them. Because when people asked me about them, I didn't just want to read a generic list of things. I wanted to really get to know them as much as I could.”

Coupled with family members from other SUD grief groups, Mina ended up with 67 patches and 67 life stories. Each day she wore her daughter’s patch plus one or two others. Each day she set out walking with the intention of talking about them. The conversations came, but the content surprised her.

“Because I'm an advocate type of person, I thought, ‘I'm going to talk about the fentanyl problem and drug addiction.’ They didn't want to really hear about that. They wanted to hear about the person that I was carrying,” Mina said. “And then, I thought, ‘That's really what I'm here for, to humanize the numbers and say things about them, about who they were, not what they were in their addiction or how they died.’ That wasn't important anymore.”

“It was great because when you're grieving, they always say to say the person's name as much as you can. And so, I would say ‘Devin’, Theresa's son’s name, 10 or 12 times in a day, because people would stop and would say, ‘Tell me about Devin.’

“‘Oh, Devin was this. Devin was that. Devin loved to serve.’ I don't know if it was because I set out with that intention every day, but I could swear it's like I felt like their spirits were there with me. I just felt it.”

Mina would take pictures along her walking route each day and write a summary of the day for the family members of the person whose patch she was wearing. There were synchronistic meetings along the way.

On day three of 45, Donna slipped on a muddy downhill and fell. Only her pride was hurt, and two young Germans were there to help her up. One stayed behind to walk with her. That day she had Anna and Ari’s photos on her backpack, and he asked her about them. “He confided in me that he had severe anxiety and depression and that he drank a lot and had considered using. Before he moved on to catch up with his friend, he thanked me and said he had a lot to think about. That was Ari helping someone.”

On that day she was entering the city of Ponferrada, famous for a castle built by the Knights of Templar in the 13th century, Donna wore the patch of veteran Jon Wiggins, as well as a Marine Corps patch. That prompted an hour-long discussion with a vet from Colorado who served as a medic in the Marines in Iraq and Somalia. Having seen up close the horrors of war, he was on this journey to try to deal with his severe PTSD. They talked about Jon, and he shared his frustration for the lack of understanding about PTSD, and how returning soldiers are shunned and misunderstood when they “don’t act right.”

Carrying her own daughter’s patch every day meant she answered

questions about her daughter every day. She shared about Anna’s strong personality, her naturing spirit, and her kind heart. The conversations brought her joy, and also brought the grief she’d been procrastinating to the present.

“I was confronted with it because you can only think about other things for so long when you're walking eight hours a day. It was painful, but by the end, it helped. It cleared up a lot of thoughts in my head of guilt, the what ifs, and what could have been, and it gave me a sense of acceptance that this is it. This is what I have to deal with. Her daughter is getting ready to have a baby. So, she would've been a grandma in October. That too is kind of joyful, but it's sad too.”

The Cruz de Ferro, also known as the Iron Cross, is the highest point of the French Way. Mina brought glass stones for each of the 67 people she was carrying with her to leave at the cross, along with some of her daughter’s ashes. As she approached the cross, the emotion and the symbolism of the area began to overwhelm her. Laying down her daughter’s ashes and the stones representing the others, she stood there in the cold and wind, sobbing. Then, turning to walk away, she heard a man calling her name. It was Eduardo, a fellow pilgrim she had met two weeks before.

“I'm like, ‘Who's calling me here in the middle of nowhere?’ I turn around... and he was just standing there with his arms open,” said Mina. “I get emotional when I think about it because he was just like a true Camino angel. He just hugged me so tight. He was in tears. I never found out what his burdens were. We just hugged, then he walked on because he was a fast walker and I never saw him again. It was like he was there at the right time where I needed a hug.”

Mina averaged about 17 miles and between 35,000 to 45,000 steps daily. Her shortest day was five miles on day one, the longest, 23 miles. Reaching the cathedral in Santiago completes the Camino journey. Each place pilgrims go along the way they get a unique stamp. When they get to Santiago, they go to the official Pilgrim’s office and present their stamps. Officials check the dates and then they certify that they did indeed complete the Camino and present the pilgrim with the official compostela — a certificate stating they completed the entire Camino in Santiago.

Some travelers continue on 90km to Cape Finisterre on the Atlantic Ocean, translated “End of the Earth.” Time did not allow for Mina to walk the additional way, but she took a bus there. Finding a scallop shell, she put some of a friend’s son’s ashes & her daughter’s ashes in the shell and put it in the ocean. She gave her backpack to a young man from Nepal who had one with broken straps. She left her shoes at the last place she stayed. Her physical journey was complete, and her emotional journey would continue.

“They say that the Camino's three things: it's physical, then emotional, then spiritual. The first 10 days were definitely physical. I literally wanted to give up. If it wasn't for these patches, I probably would have, because I was just physically exhausted. I hurt every muscle that I never knew I had.

“The experience, you don't really absorb all of it until you get back. Then you start missing the simplicity. All you have to do is get up, put in your GPS where you're walking to, think about where you're going to sleep, where you're going to eat, and just walk. That's all you do. There's so much visually. It's just almost overwhelming.

“It's funny because so many people you hear them say, ‘Okay, this is a one and done. I'm glad I did it, but I'm not doing it again.’ Even my friend, who said ‘I'm the sit by the pool at a resort kind of vacation girl.’ She's already been texting me lately. ‘What are we going to do next year? Do you want to do the Portuguese (route)? When could you do it?’”

The Art Of Caregiving

An Online Summit That Delivers A Caregiving Message Unlike Any Other

When it comes to communities, one of the largest in the world and one we’re all likely to be a part of at one point in our lives, is the community of caregivers. As former First Lady Rosalyn Carter famously once said, “There are four kinds of people in the world: Those who are currently caregivers, those who have been caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need care.”

Growing Bolder recently teamed up with author and national caregiving expert Amy O’Rourke to create The Art of Caregiving Online Summit to deliver a caregiving message unlike any you’ve ever heard. This summit pushes the boundaries of possibility when it comes to creating moments of joy for ourselves and those in our care, delivering valuable insight and practical tips to help you navigate your caregiving journey.

Here are some of the highlights of this hour-long special:

CAREGIVING FAST FACTS

+ An estimated 53 million Americans are caregivers today.

+ American caregivers provide an estimated $500 billion in unpaid care every year.

+ The number of fragile elderly in the U.S. will double by 2040, with 70% of those over the age of 65 expected to need long-term care.

+ The number of older adults with Alzheimer’s Disease is estimated to grow from 6.2 million to 12.7 million by 2050.

**Source: National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP**

5 KEYS FOR THE MODERN CAREGIVER ACCORDING TO AMY O’ROURKE

The Fragile Years

Do

All Else Fails

VALUABLE INSIGHT FROM MEMORY CARE EXPERT MOLLY MIDDLETON MEYER

“We are so over concerned about what we can and cannot do with people with memory loss. Why can't they do things they want to do? Why can't they go horseback riding? Why can't we go to outings and hike? I mean, they could fall in the community. We wouldn't question that if someone had stage four cancer and they wanted to go climb a mountain. We would think that was the coolest thing ever. But we don't have that philosophy with people with dementia.”

THE LATEST IN TECH WITH GRANDPAD CEO SCOTT LIEN

“Only people who are invited into the network can communicate with that senior on their GrandPad. Not only does that remove the fear of scammers, but it then creates engagement. When the GrandPad rings, people answer it. “

“Think about all the doctors and nurses and caregivers that are trying to get ahold of seniors. When the seniors don't recognize the phone number, they don't answer the phone. By increasing that answer rate, we're able to create that communication between the doctors, nurses, and the seniors.”

INSIGHTS AND STORIES FROM CAREGIVING EXPERTS AND ADVOCATES

Positive Approach

Care

In addition, The Art of Caregiving includes a focus on the value of autonomy and the anatomy of risk for those in care, and what lawmakers can do to improve the state of the caregiving industry in the United States.

for free and download Growing Bolder’s Art of Caregiving digital resources at GrowingBolder.com/Caregiving

TEEPA SNOW

DAN GASBY

Advocate and Author

KIM CAMPBELL Caregiving Advocate and Author

Awesome Baby!

Dickie V Is Cancer-Free

Dick Vitale was one of ESPN’S very first hires back in 1979. He had just been fired by the NBA’s Detroit Pistons and was looking for a Division I college coaching job when ESPN called. "ESPN, what the hell is ESPN?” he remembers thinking. "It sounds like a disease. I never heard of it. So, I said I wasn’t interested.”

The college call that Vitale was waiting for didn’t come and he grew increasingly restless. “I was watching Luke and Laura on General Hospital. That's how desperate and depressed I was,” he says. “When ESPN called back, my wife nearly pushed me out the house. I agreed to do one game.”

That was 44 years ago. Since then, Vitale has worked more than 1,000 games and has become not just a broadcasting icon but a cultural icon. He’s been inducted into 14 Hall of Fames, including the big one, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008. He’s written 14 books, appeared in dozens of movies, commercials, and video games and is an in-demand motivational speaker.

Most are aware of Vitale’s many accomplishments over the last five decades. What many don’t know about is the incredible string of health challenges he’s endured over the past 18 months. “It’s been a tough, tough year,” he admits. “But I’ve had so much support. Love and prayers from many

caring people really got me through.”

In August of 2021, Vitale announced that he had undergone multiple surgeries for melanoma. “I looked like I was beat up by Mike Tyson,” he says. “And about the same time, I had bile duct problems. At first, they thought it was bile duct cancer, which is a very tough cancer to deal with. Fortunately, after scans, they determined that it was lymphoma, which is treatable, which is curable. I never thought that I would be jubilant hearing I have lymphoma, but I was.”

He didn’t have bile duct cancer, but he did have bile duct blockage which required several surgeries as he was dealing with lymphoma, his second cancer diagnosis in less than six months. While he was undergoing chemotherapy, he lost his voice. “That really crushed me more than anything. I couldn't speak.”

Doctors determined that he had dysplasia in his throat, a growth on his vocal cords that could become cancerous if left untreated.

In the middle of multiple rounds of chemotherapy, he had two surgeries on his vocal cords and was unable to speak a word for four months. “It was great for my wife,” he says with a smile. “She loved every moment. She finally got a chance to speak!”

As his throat was healing, doctors ordered a comprehensive set of scans looking for any signs of cancer. “They went through my entire body and came out and said, ‘Dick, you’re cancer free.’ I burst out in tears, to be honest with you, because it's been a tough, tough year.”

With his voice coming back and two cancer battles won, Vitale learned that he would be honored with the prestigious Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the 2022 ESPY Awards. The award is named for the late Jim Valvano, Vitale’s friend and former broadcast partner at ESPN. It was Vitale who helped Valvano to the stage 29 years ago at the very first ESPYs where he delivered his famous “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up” speech, just two months before passing away.

Photography by Mike Dunn for Growing Bolder

Marc Middleton

After accepting the award from actor Jon Hamm, Vitale praised the Jimmy V Foundation which funds cancer research and told the worldwide audience, “Cancer doesn't discriminate. It comes after all. It will bring you to your knees. There's only one way to beat it, my friends. We have to raise dollars and give oncologists a fighting chance.”

Those were not empty words. Vitale has become one of the world’s top fundraisers for pediatric cancer research. It’s a mission that he takes personally after watching Payton Wright, a 5-year-old girl in his Florida neighborhood, valiantly fight a rare form of brain cancer. “Payton changed my life” he says. “I went to her funeral, and I was a basket case listening to her parents, Patrick and Holly, talk about their little girl. I get choked up thinking about it. When the funeral ended, I was so emotionally taken, I ran to their car and said, ‘Look, we can't save Payton, but we could save other kids. We can do research in her name. I promise you I’m going to raise a million dollars in the next six months in her name. We’re going to have research grants given to All Children's Hospital where she had her treatment.’”

The next day, Vitale began reaching out to his friends who admired his passion but were skeptical that he could deliver against his ambitious promise. “They told me, ‘Man, you're crazy.’ I told them we're going to do it. We'll get started with a big star. Someone we’re going to honor. I called Mike Krzyzewski at Duke and I said, ‘Mike, I need a favor.’ Mike said, ‘Just give me a date, man. Give me a date and I'll be there.’ We raised $1.3 million, $1.4 million. And we've been doing it ever since.”

This year, the 17th annual Dickie V Gala raised $11.1 million. To date, the Gala has helped raise nearly $55 million for the Dick Vitale Fund for Pediatric

Cancer doesn't discriminate. It comes after all. It will bring you to your knees. There's only one way to beat it, my friends. We have to raise dollars and give oncologists a fighting chance.

DICK VITALE

Left to right: (1)Dick Vitale pictured with his wife of over 50 years, Lorraine McGrath, (2) Payton Wright, a 5-year-old girl in his Florida neighborhood who valiantly fought a rare form of brain cancer. (3) Dick being interview by the Growing Bolder team at his home. (4) Dick pictured next to Jon Hamm accepting the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance.

Photography by Mike Dunn for Growing Bolder

Cancer at the V Foundation. Vitale doesn’t just lend his name to the effort. He doesn’t just twist the arms of potential donors. He sheds tears with families. He knows the names and remembers the circumstances of every child he meets, every mother and father he consoles. “I get to know these kids. They shouldn't suffer,” he says. “I’ve always been moved by their struggle, but now maybe even more so because I've gone through a mini version of what they go through. I'm 83 years old. People have been good to me. I want to give back.”

In all he does, Vitale is driven by passion and powered by perseverance. His life hasn’t been easy. An accident as a child blinded him in one eye and led to constant bullying. His friends belittled his dreams of success. He believes that he’s been able to overcome every challenge and exceed every expectation because his parents taught him life’s most important lesson. “I grew up with a mom and dad that had maybe a fifth, sixth grade education, but they had a doctorate in love. I got so much love as a child. Every day they told me how much they cared about me and how I could be something special. Their love is the key to everything I have accomplished.”

Vitale starts and ends every day that same — looking at a photo in his bedroom and saying a prayer. “It’s a beautiful picture of me with my mom and my dad. I'm about three or four and I’m sitting on their lap. I thank them for the incredible love they gave me as a child. I thank them for giving me the greatest gift anybody could ever receive and that's the gift of love.”

“My mother would say to me, ‘Never, ever believe in can't. Don't allow can't to be part of your life.’ I've applied that to everything. When I was in the middle of chemo and alone and depressed at night, I heard her words and Jimmy V’s

words. ‘Don't give up. Don't ever give up.’ Some will say, that's corny. It might be corny to them, but it wasn't to me. Hearing those words echo over and over gave me the impetus to want to get better.”

Vitale is anxious for the upcoming basketball season. He’s anxious to resume his speaking career. He’s anxious to raise more money and more awareness for pediatric cancer. His health scares over the past 18 months have made him even more aware that the clock is ticking, and every day is not just a blessing to be grateful for but also an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.

Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez / Stringer via Getty Images

“I would simply tell you this, man. As I live my life, I'm Growing Bolder, baby.”

The Power Of Planning

8 Ways An Elder Law Attorney Can Assist You

Vanessa J. Skinner

Vanessa J. Skinner is a shareholder with the firm of Winderweedle, Haines, Ward & Woodman, P.A., where she chairs the firm’s Wills, Trusts & Estates Department. She was recently named one of the Best Lawyers in America in the area of Elder Law for the third consecutive year. She is the host of The Power of Planning Podcast, anchor.fm/thepowerofplanning.

Photo by arsenisspyros via Getty Images

When I tell people I am an elder law attorney, they assume I help people plan for their death. Although that may, in part, be true, elder law is much more than that. It encompasses a variety of planning strategies to help those entering their golden years focus on living, rather than dying. For those who failed to do advance planning, it includes helping their families, often their adult caregiver children, with crisis planning. Here are eight important strategies to consider:

Estate Planning

A comprehensive estate plan serves two key purposes — planning for lifetime incapacity and transferring wealth at death. In the absence of such planning, you may find yourself the subject of a guardianship proceeding, and at your death, your assets may be subject to probate and distributed according to your state’s laws, rather than your own wishes.

Asset Protection Planning

After working hard for years to accumulate a certain level of wealth, you want to be sure your assets are not vulnerable to attack by creditors during your retirement. In addition to having sufficient insurance coverage in place, certain types of assets and certain methods of titling assets can afford you better creditor protection.

Retirement Benefits Planning

The passage of federal legislation in 2019 implemented sweeping changes concerning retirement accounts, including provisions designed to assist you in enhancing your retirement savings and others that impact how your retirement accounts may be distributed upon your death. Additional federal legislation is pending that could bring even more changes to the retirement benefits planning landscape.

Tax Planning

Avoiding taxes is everyone’s goal. From the income tax consequences of required retirement account distributions to the highest federal estate tax exemptions in U.S. history that are scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025 to the capital gains taxes that can be minimized for those inheriting assets at death, tax planning is inevitably a part of every elder law discussion.

Charitable Giving

Whether you are motivated by a desire to minimize taxes or to make a positive impact on society, or perhaps you are driven by both, charitable giving planning strategies take many different forms and can be implemented at different times. Charitable contributions can be made during your lifetime or at your death directly to non-profit organizations, or they can be structured through a donor advised fund or charitable trust. A charitable family foundation can also be established.

Government Benefits Planning

If you are like most Americans and find long-term care insurance policy premiums to be cost prohibitive, the reality of skyrocketing costs for long-term care can be quite daunting. You may not have the financial means to pay privately or your may prefer to preserve your nest egg. There are federal and state government assistance programs available that can help with the monthly cost of care. Many of these programs are needs based, and therefore limit eligibility to those with a certain level of assets and income. Planning tools can be implemented to achieve financial eligibility for such programs.

Planning for Remarriage

Remarrying later in life following the death or divorce of a former spouse presents certain unique financial considerations. The couple is often presented with the difficult decision of how to equitably provide for each other and their respective adult children upon their deaths. Concerns of divorce also loom large since separate property is often more significant than marital property. Nuptial agreements are particularly effective in these situations.

Elder Abuse/Exploitation

As the number of those 65 and older continues to rise, instances of elder abuse and exploitation are becoming more prevalent. Some law enforcement communities have established senior crime units to help prevent this particularly vulnerable population from falling victim to neglect, abuse and financial fraud.

In the months to come, I plan to do a deep dive into each of these areas to spotlight the value in advance planning and the unintended consequences that can result from a failure to plan.

“Alone, we can do so little; Together, we can do so much.”

— Helen Keller

Photo by Caia Image via Getty Images

Mitch Albom

64

Mitch Albom is a best-selling author, screenwriter, journalist, and musician. His books have sold over 40 million copies worldwide. This year is the 25th anniversary of Tuesdays with Morrie — his most beloved book and one of the best-selling memoirs of all time. It’s about his relationship with a college professor. It’s about the wisdom of an old man and the curiosity of a young man.

What would you do if you answered the phone and it was your mother calling, even though she died years ago? What would you say? What would you talk about? That’s the premise of my book, The First Phone Call from Heaven What would we say to those we no longer have the opportunity to speak with? What if we had another chance?

There is something about losing someone close that makes us take a closer look at ourselves. It gives us perspective, helps us see the big picture, makes us look at how we live. It’s something I learned when I wrote Tuesdays with Morrie. All those conversations we had at the end of his life helped me see myself with clarity. He inspired me to do more and be more.

The reaction I get from readers confirms that most of us need a jolt in our lives to get us to remember what’s really important.

“People ask me why I always write about death. I don’t think I do. My books are about life. Death is just the lens that helps us focus on finding life’s true significance.”

People ask me why I always write about death. I don’t think I do. My books are about life. Death is just the lens that helps us focus on finding life’s true significance.

Doctors will tell you that people don’t start taking care of themselves until faced with some kind of crisis. It’s only then when many decide to clean up their diets and start to exercise. I feel like it’s the same with my writing. By talking about things like heaven and death, it pushes people to reconsider what’s important in life.

So, here’s my takeaway: Are you living the life you want? Are you asking the right questions in your conversations? Don’t wait until someone you care for is taken away. Pick up that phone, talk the talk, then walk the walk. Then you won’t need a phone call from heaven to get you to live the life you really should.

Photo

The Power Of The Tribe

How Community Boosts Immunity And Helps Us Live Longer, Healthier Lives

FIND YOUR TRIBE is a Growing Bolder mantra simply because we know how important it is. We’re social animals who are hardwired to engage with others. It’s in our DNA. Multiple studies show that social relationships have a profound influence on mental and physical health, mortality risk, and longevity.

Photo by Tara Moore via Getty Images

There are the obvious things, such as people that feel isolated are more depressed, and they don't sleep as well. The ripple goes from there, according to Florida Blue Medicare chief medical officer Paul Kaplan. “The higher executive functioning of your brain, being able to solve problems, complex issues, that ability goes down, your cognitive behavior declines. Your cardiac function, your ability of your heart and your blood vessels to do what they have to do and do it in a healthy way actually gets worse.”

A study by the American Cancer Society, published in 2019 looked at 580,000 people. They asked them, ‘Are you happy? Are you socially isolated? Or do you feel you've got a very good support system?’ The discovery was the socially isolated people had a higher rate of early death from any cause — it did not have to be only from cancer. You could die earlier from anything if you were socially isolated. Additional studies dive even deeper.

“The example that I find the most fascinating looks at the unique cellular level within your body,” Dr. Kaplan said. “There was a study published in 2015 by a Dr. Cole and he looked at the white blood cells, the leukocytes and these are the cells in your body that fight infection, and he looked at the gene expression within those cells.

“He had two groups, socially isolated and people who feel that they are completely happy and have the social support they need. In the isolated group, the gene expression within those leukocytes or white blood cells favored

Florida Blue and Florida Blue

increase in inflammation and a reduction in the viral fighting capacity of those white blood cells. So, even at a cellular level in the body, especially now with COVID, we're setting ourselves up to be at risk of more infections, more inflammation and our ability to fight the virus is diminished.”

It's clear that social connections are not only good for our mentality, they are essential for our physical health. It’s important to pick our friends wisely because health-related attitudes positive and negative spread rapidly throughout social networks. Active, healthy, happy friends are the vaccine against sickness, depression and cognitive decline. Community is immunity.

Open Enrollment for Medicare is Oct. 15 – Dec. 7, 2022. As the leaves gradually change and the temperatures begin to drop, the change of seasons remind us that the year is winding up. It’s a good time to evaluate how you can finish 2022 on a high note, and to start thinking about your Medicare plan for 2023. Have your circumstances or your health changed this year? What might those changes mean for your health coverage in 2023? Visit medicareeducationmonth.com to get 10 Medicare tips to help you navigate the Annual Election Period which runs from Oct 15 to Dec 7, including learning how to evaluate your current plan, understand how your current plan may change and analyze your out-ofpocket spending to see if you have the right plan for your budget.

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