“The closest we come to bingo is potlucks,” said Keith Gnagey ’75 to a chorus of laughter.
Gnagey and several other Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) alumni serve on the board of Valley Village – a group of older adults in the Harrisonburg area who support one another to maintain independence and wellbeing as they age. (The board’s nine members also include non-EMU alumni.)
The village offers a variety of programs: from social gatherings to assistance with grocery shopping to classes on healthcare and legal services in the area. They’ve gone on excursions all over the Shenandoah Valley – seeing an outdoor Shakespeare performance, strolling through apple orchards, and touring the Frontier Culture Museum.
“We want to age in place as long as we can, and this really has helped,” Clara Yoder, class of ’64, said. “We enjoy the social activities, and learning to know individuals better, that we wouldn’t see that much otherwise.”
The group first coalesced as the Park View Village, the brainchild of Gnagey and Paul A. Yoder ’61, who were inspired by the village model that emerged in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. John Spicher ’58 was also a part of those early planning sessions.
Villages are grassroots groups of neighbors that help one another with household tasks and organize social and cultural events. There are approximately 350 Village organizations in the country that aim to help older adults age in place.
“Staying healthy became very important to us. Being around friends was important,” Yoder recalled. “Belonging to Valley Village was an option in hopes that, with time, support services we needed would be available. Counsel from younger seniors who would join would also be an asset.”
Village members were initially limited to those living in the small neighborhood close to EMU, after the model of the Beacon Hill Village.
“In urban settings, you’re really encouraged to have a definite boundary and identified area that has an identity, so we thought that would be Park View,” Gnagey said. But “we always had requests from beyond, just outside, of, ‘what about us?'”
Daryl Peifer ’75 joined the village after returning to the area in 2016. He and his wife Jane Hoober Peifer ’75 participated in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania chapter for 10 years, “so we experienced the merit and the value of the village to village network prior to coming here,” he explained.
Peifer then encouraged Stan Godshall ’65 to join the group when Godshall moved to Harrisonburg, and was looking for ways to build relationships.
Once Peifer joined the board, he led the organization in a strategic planning process, through which they decided to open up their borders. They officially changed their name to Valley Village in 2018, with the intention of focusing membership on the greater Harrisonburg area – but they won’t turn you away if you live a little ways out.
“We’ve enjoyed a real robust growth in membership and programming” since that expansion, Gnagey said. There are now approximately 100 members in the group, representing 62 households.
The majority of members range in age from their late-60s to mid-80s.
“My wife and I are relatively young and healthy and capable, but we understand the aging process,” Peifer said, “so that we kind of feel our engagement … with the village is one of paying forward, to have a viable organization that is there to support us when we are needing help to maintain independent living.”
The Peifers aren’t the only ones who are eager to pay it forward – the group typically has more members volunteering to get groceries and take folks to doctors’ appointments than they do requests for those services.
Ann Bender, class of ’58 noted, however, that some people have a hard time vocalizing their needs.
“Truth is, it’s not fun to ask for help. Most of us want to be independent,” Bender said.
She understands this from a service provider perspective as well as a personal one – Bender was the director of Valley Program for Aging Services for over two decades before retiring in the early 2000s. That work was “very much on the same wavelength as what we do [through Valley Village] for people in trying to help them stay in the community, so I really believe in it,” she said.
Another of the group’s programs is their service provider network: a database of contractors, handymen, and other tradespeople who have been vetted by village members.
For example, “someone might have a plumbing leak, their commode is running all the time or something,” Peifer said. “Who can you trust? … We have developed a network of providers that we have all utilized that we feel safe with calling.”
Of course, it’s not all medical appointments and plumber recommendations with this group. They’re currently planning a boating trip to Smith Mountain Lake, and a tour of the Cold War bunker in Greenbrier, W.Va.
Bender, whose husband Titus Bender, emeritus professor of social work at EMU, passed away in 2017, said she appreciates how these trips are enjoyable for both couples and singles.
“There have been times where several of us who are no longer a couple were included, and that felt good,” she said.
Additionally, their trips are planned at an age-appropriate pace. Gnagey said that when you’re raising a family and travel somewhere with your children, “their patience or tolerance for sticking around and looking at information ended before you were done, and you just left.”
But when you travel with older peers, “it’s just a slow go and no one’s really in a hurry,” he said. He paused, recalling a Valley Village outing to Monticello that ended abruptly.
“Unless it’s pouring down rain!” he said, to more laughter.