Change the Way You Age EXPO

Cobb Senior Services will present the #Change the Way You Age EXPO on Wednesday, May 13, 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the Cobb Count Civic Center, 548 S. Marietta Parkway, Marietta 30060.

The expo is a great place to get information and have a good time. More than 50 exhibitors representing services for the 55+ community will be there. Find out what’s happening at your local senior center. Learn about senior housing, in-home care, assistive technology, Medicare, veteran’s benefits and more.

Admission and parking are free, and there will be door prizes. The expo is open to the public regardless of age or residency.

By Mark Woolsey

Richard Sussman not only appreciates Atlanta’s nickname of ‘a city in a forest,’ he brings that catchy phrase right back home.

“I have no grass,” he said of his home in the city of Atlanta. “Our landscaping is trees and shrubs and raised beds. I have completely eliminated grass.”

Sussman had plenty of opportunities to get up-close and personal to sturdy trunks and leafy branches during a career with the U.S. Forest Service. Now retired, he’s taken that knowledge and his expertise as a University of Georgia Master Gardner and put it to good use with Trees Atlanta, the non-profit which over the last 35 years has worked tirelessly to protect Atlanta’s existing tree canopy and help grow new green space.

During April, the group plans to take part in the 50th observance of Earth Day on April 22 by doing a tree planting project and educational programs. But understandably, the group’s bigger push has historically come on Arbor Day. In addition to that, a much bigger and decade-long offensive has just launched.

Sussman is one of a strong corps of volunteers that helps with various aspects of the group founded in 1985. They perform tasks ranging from actual plantings to leading tours along the wildly popular BeltLine Trail—which Trees Atlanta has dubbed an arboretum, a botanical garden devoted to trees—to handling various datacollection and administrative tasks.

Older adults are key to that effort, according to volunteer coordinator Susan Pierce Cunningham. She said many of the project leaders who helm various group initiatives are older volunteers. They work with staffers who are site coordinators—and Pierce Cunningham indicated that they are infinitely valuable.

“Just like in all aspects of life, they have more life experience with everything,” she said. “That means they understand more quickly what we’re trying to