Community Foundation of South Jersey Awards $150,000 in Aging Innovation Fund Grants
HADDONFIELD, NJ The Community Foundation of South Jersey (CFSJ) is please to announce the 2017 recipients of its Aging Innovation Fund (AIF) grants. Three organizations will each receive $50,000 for programs that will offer new ways to address aging issues in our region.
This year, grants were awarded to the following programs:
- Hoarding Disorder Initiative (The Mental Health Association of New Jersey) which is a partnership with the Atlantic County Hoarding Task Force that focuses on reducing problems associated with hoarding by older adults.
- Creating Great Places To Age (New Jersey Futures) will educate South Jersey municipalities about how the combination of land-use and affordable housing can create more age-friendly communities.
- House Calls and Behavioral Health Integration Project (Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine NJ Institute for Successful Aging) will develop an inter-professional care team approach to serving homebound seniors.
AIF was created by the Cascade Corporation after the company sold its South Jersey nursing homes in 2014. The company’s leadership wanted to continue to serve local seniors and worked with CFSJ to develop this resource to encourage new ways to address aging issues. Over three years, the AIF will award $450k to organizations that are working toward the following goals:
- Wellness: Help older adults be active, healthy and engaged in their communities
- Support: Improve home, community-based, and long term services and supports for older adults
- Rights: Ensure that the rights of older adults are protected
- Protection: Prevent the abuse, neglect and exploitation of older adults
“Our Aging Innovation Fund at CFSJ allows us to continue the work Cascade was originally set up to do,” said Don Ambrose, CEO of Cascade’s parent company Del Mar Healthcare. “We are now in our second year, and we’re very excited that South Jersey has eagerly embraced the opportunity to innovate and lead in this field.”
According to CFSJ Board Chair John C. Connell, the rapid rise of New Jersey’s older adult population over the last decade has increased the need for innovative solutions for quality of life and wellness. “The Aging Innovation Fund has allowed CFSJ to bring seniors, their caregivers and families, and the communities in which they live into the conversation as we rethink how to support our seniors.”
Previous AIF grantees include the Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Southern New Jersey’s Patient Partners, Cape Assist/Cape May County Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse’s Aging Wrap-Around Services and Stand Up for Salem’s Senior Health & Wellness Park.