HOC Helping Senior Residents Thrive Through the Arts
It has been proven in study after study that engagement in the arts – visual, musical or physical/performing – can improve physical, cognitive, and emotional health as we grow older. The Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC) is proud to make those life-enhancing experiences available to our senior residents through The Empower Project.
A collaboration among HOC, Arts for the Aging (AFTA) and the Jewish Council for the Aging (JCA) Heyman Interages Center, The Empower Project offers arts engagement workshops and leadership training initiatives to equip older adults and teenagers to deliver arts programs to residents of HOC senior communities. It is funded by Enterprise’s Thome Aging Well Program.
Connecting Generations
The Empower Project trains older adults living in HOC communities how to share their art form as a teaching Artist in Residence. This is a paid opportunity for them to learn how to lead workshops for their neighbors and friends as a trained Artist in Residence. Teens will be trained as Artist Assistant Fellows (aka Artist AF) and learn how to lead arts workshops for older adults.
Both Artists in Residence and Artist AFs receive a stipend for training and workshop time. Teen Artist AFs can also earn Student Service Learning (SSL) hours in Montgomery County schools.
Limitless Possibilities, Extraordinary Benefits
Many forms of artistic expression – music, dance, drawing, painting, photography, poetry, animation and more – are offered. HOC seniors are physically active through movement and dance in various cultural dance traditions. Participants are more engaged through the visual arts and group singing and other musical expressions open new horizons of creativity. Others explore various creative writing activities that ignite the imagination.
For seniors, The Empower Project arts engagement workshops foster creativity, social connection and better community health. They boost physical, mental, emotional and social wellbeing in many ways:
- Decreasing depression, anxiety and loneliness
- Improving memory and cognitive function
- Lowering risks of dementia
- Reducing pain medication usage and hospital stays
- Strengthening immune levels
Youth are learning valuable new skills that will help them excel throughout their lives.
Older adults and caregivers in HOC communities are welcome to join the arts workshops at no cost at Bauer Park, Forest Oak Towers, Residences on the Lane and Waverly House.