 
|
|||||||||||
              
|
Finding new ways to work and play (cont.) Back to school Another institution older adults have flocked to in recent years has been the university. Hundreds of senior citizens each year enroll in reduced rate classes at the area’s many colleges. Ida Notov has attended classes in the College over Sixty Program at the University of Pittsburgh since the program began in 1974. Last year, she was among the 1,000 students over age 55 who paid $25 to audit the undergraduate course of their choice. She enjoyed not only the coursework, but also the other students. "I got along very well with them. We used to sit on the floor in the union hall and sing songs and play banjos," she said. Older adults are welcome additions to most classrooms, said Alice Greller, professor of contemporary history at the Community College of Allegheny County. CCAC offers up to two free credit courses each semester to people over 65. Last year, more than 1,105 older people took at least one class, and the numbers keep growing. Elderly students are more motivated to learn than their younger counterparts; classes are fun for them, Greller said. "These have been women who reared their families and wanted an education so now they’re coming back. The men have been interested in career changes late in life, perhaps volunteer jobs." Although Greller provides many retired seniors with a needed sense of purpose and growth, the 70-year-old teacher is loath to retire herself. "The thought is too horrible. I don’t play bridge, I don’t play golf, I don’t play tennis. So what is there for me?" she asked. Many retired professors join the hundreds of other retired professionals who organize and create their own classes at the Academy for Lifelong Learning, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University and affiliated with the Elderhostel network. Once they have paid the modest fees, members can take or lead six-week seminars on anything from James Joyce to HMOs. The organization entered its seventh year last spring with such an enthusiastic response from the community that the academy had to cap its membership at 600. Elderhostel has helped to start 245 of these academies, but it is probably better-known for its travel seminars — short, intensive workshops for senior citizens who enjoy visiting one of their many national or international study cites. Older adults travel a great deal, often taking car or bus trips to see family, to gamble, or just to explore a new city. "Travel ranks as one of the top leisure activities for men and women 50 and over. Collectively, they spent more than $30 billion in the past year on vacation travel," according to the 1995 "Mature American in the 1990s," a special report from Modern Maturity Magazine and the Roper Organization. Charter bus tours in particular seem to be favorites for older day-trippers. Washington Charters manager Chuck Osborn said that about 60 percent of the company’s business comes from senior travelers. Last year, the Washington, Pa.- based business sold about 23,100 seats to elderly riders. Popular destinations ranged from Atlantic City, N.J., and Las Vegas to nearby Amish towns. Some Pittsburgh organizations would like to tap this zest for exploration and refocus older residents on Pittsburgh. The Jewish Healthcare Foundation hopes to adapt and expand the Elderhostel short-term travel programs for local residents. The proposed Senior Engagement Enterprise would create longer-term classes and projects that center around Pittsburgh’s educational and cultural facilities. A growing market While they attend the symphony, they are rarely found in centers of popular culture such as malls. In 1990, adults over the age of 65 spent less than half of what younger consumers spent on entertainment and clothes, and only slightly more proportionally at restaurants, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. While some studies show they have more spending money than younger people, they remain a small segment of many commercial markets. The large percent of elderly in the Pittsburgh area will not help planners for the new Forbes and Fifth development. "They looked at age demographics, they looked at the radius of the market area, they looked at the transportation issues, they looked at income levels," said Mulugetta Birru, director of Urban Redevelopment Authority. "If the population was younger, the purchasing power would be higher than senior citizens living on a fixed income." Not all older adults live on a fixed income, but elderly consumers can be hard to understand and to target. Eat’n Park Restaurants Inc. is one of the local companies that tries to cater to older tastes. Seniors make up an important part of Eat’n Park’s business, said spokesman Cliff Miller, but only 4 percent of everything ordered comes from the "Seniors Especially" menu, which features smaller portions with lower prices. "That’s probably a little lower than I would have anticipated," Miller said, although he knows plenty of older men who have large appetites and do not think of themselves as senior citizens. One way to solve the problem of how to accommodate older people is to add amenities that benefit everyone. Universal design is a growing concept, and one that may slowly change hard-to-grab doorknobs into handles, and steps into ramps. Peter Mendoza, regional vice president for Lazarus, said he finds that elderly shoppers generally request features that make Lazarus products and stores more accessible to everyone. They tend to favor fabrics that are easy to care for, classic lines of clothes, and wider aisles, which are also easier for parents with strollers to navigate, Mendoza said. Financial gerontologist Steven Devlin said that for marketing to succeed, companies will have to realize that older people cannot all be grouped together. "For retailers, that’s the important message that we have to hear. We think of the old as a homogeneous group. That is thrown out now. We have the young old, and the old old," he said. And the young old are a growing market of resourceful, mobile buyers.
Like many of the young old, Shirley Grab, of Whitehall, does not plan to take growing older lying down. The 63-year-old runs her own secretarial business four days a week, spends a lot of time with her 19 grandnieces and grandnephews, and offers the Catholic Eucharist to hospital patients every Sunday morning. Grab can also run a quarter of a mile in 2.247 minutes, and she’s one of the best basketball players her age in the state. She’s won more than 20 medals in the Citiparks Senior Games. Grab is probably one of the few older women to hold season tickets to the Duquesne University men’s basketball team. Next October she’ll represent Pennsylvania’s senior citizens in the National Senior Olympics in Orlando, Fla. She’s already conditioning herself, moving full speed ahead. Not all of the new elderly may be as athletic as Grab, but they will be a significantly different group than in the past. "Retailers need to hear that you’ve got a generation of people who … are suddenly finding they are enjoying life, that old age was not what they expected,’’ Devlin said. "This is not the old age of their parents."
|
||||||||||
