[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 2481]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     CONGRATULATING BEACON HILL VILLAGES ON THEIR 15TH ANNIVERSARY

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                         HON. STEPHEN F. LYNCH

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, February 13, 2017

  Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 15th 
Anniversary of Beacon Hill Village in Boston. It's an anniversary with 
significance for the whole Nation and they are to be congratulated on 
reaching this special milestone.
  Mr. Speaker, Beacon Hill Village was created by, and for, neighbors 
determined, as they aged, to continue to thrive and grow in the 
neighborhood they loved. There was no ready model. A core goal of 
Beacon Hill Village members was keeping independent. There isn't much 
choice about growing old, but there are choices about where and how to 
do so. A little help with the ordinary business of living is always 
welcome, yet Beacon Hill Village's philosophy was from the start all 
about choice: its members are quite capable of figuring out what they 
need and when.
  But the revolution in aging our nation is experiencing also presented 
an extraordinary opportunity beyond better managing daily life. Most of 
our nation's elders will live many years after retirement: Their goals 
for those years are to be productive, engaged and open to new people, 
new experiences, and new ideas. Its members quickly and clearly 
understood how Beacon Hill Village could advance those goals.
  Almost from the start, word of Beacon Hill Village's success serving 
its own members spread. More and more communities, from near and far, 
were soon flooding Beacon Hill Village with requests for help in 
creating villages of their own. In response, just a few years after it 
opened in 2002, Beacon Hill Village was the chief force behind the 
creation of the Village to Village Network, dedicated to helping 
communities everywhere design their own villages reflecting local needs 
and using local resources. Today that Network has more than 350 open 
and developing villages serving members numbering over 40,000. These 
villages are all across the nation, in 45 states and the District of 
Columbia, and in six countries abroad.
  Mr. Speaker, I am convinced, that the best days of Beacon Hill 
Village, the Village to Village Network and the villages of the nation, 
are still ahead of them. Their message is simple, forceful and 
optimistic: aging should be to each individual's own design. No one, as 
they age, should be told where to go or how to live. Villages can help 
their members take responsibility for their own aging and make choices 
resulting in vibrant, purposeful lives lived on their own terms, in 
their own homes and communities. With this message the village movement 
is changing how elders experience aging and how our society perceives 
aging. Every American benefits from these changes.
  On February 13th in Boston, Dr. Atul Gawande, whose celebrated 2014 
book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End continues to 
sustain a lively national conversation about living well and ending 
well in old age, will speak at a public forum to salute and conclude 
Beacon Hill Village's fifteenth-year celebrations. Being Mortal has 
generous things to say about how Beacon Hill Village and villages 
inspired by it provide a valuable model for such living and ending 
well. Dr. Gawande's remarks will be simulcast nationally to more than 
150 villages where more than 5000 will participate remotely in the 
celebration.
  One of the great issues worldwide today is how to support and care 
for aging populations. By 2030, twenty percent of our nation's 
population will be over 65, an estimated 83 million people. The numbers 
are even larger in many countries around the world. The Village concept 
and Dr. Gawande's profound understanding of the importance of community 
and choice offer valuable insights and solutions for this challenging 
phenomenon.
  Mr. Speaker, in recognition of the positive impact that the village 
movement has had on the experience of aging, I ask that my colleagues 
join me in saluting Beacon Hill Village and villages throughout the 
nation by designating Monday, February 13, 2017 as National Villages 
Day.

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