January 2018 - Parks & Recreation - 61

Member Spotlight: Lucky D'Ascanio
By Cort Jones

hanging lives for the better and creating opportunities for activities that
otherwise may not be available for many people is a very rewarding part
of being in the parks and recreation industry. Opportunities and activities
shouldn't stop at a certain age, and providing recreation programs for older
adults is just as vital for this age group as it is for any other. Lucky D'Ascanio, Falmouth Parks and Community Programs director, in Falmouth, Maine, has worked
with providing programming for older adults for more than 20 years, starting as an
intern while working on her master's degree, and she says, from the very beginning,
they always just light up her day. When it comes to staying active, the senior citizens
in Falmouth have an array of options, everything from games to yoga and aerobics, to
trips around the world.
Parks & Recreation magazine recently
caught up with D'Ascanio to learn about
her department's widespread approach
to programs for the senior citizen community in Falmouth.

Parks & Recreation: What is your role
as the Falmouth Parks and Community
Programs director?
Lucky D'Ascanio: I oversee the parks division facilities scheduling for the town
of Falmouth, the open space program,
which is robust, as well as adult recreation and senior programming.
P&R: What are some of the programs
that you're proud of that are directed
at older adults?
D'Ascanio: In the past two years, we've
had a Senior Citizens Advisory Committee, and from that, we've gotten funding
for a " senior room " in our small activity center. In that senior room, which
we call the Presumpscot Room, we have
programs such as Mahjong and cribbage.
We also offer a AAA defensive driving
course for seniors and partner with the
southern Maine-area Agency on Aging to offer fall prevention courses and
things like that. We're also working with
seniors in our community on projects
such as ride shares. We may partner with

a local church to offer rides to seniors
to get them to doctor's appointments,
hair appointments or to pick up groceries. One of the best programs we offer
here is a safe indoor walking program,
where seniors come in and they get these
lanyards with foam cutouts to put in a
basket each time they walk one lap. Eleven laps measures to be one mile, and the
cutouts help so they don't have to keep
track of how many laps they've walked.
We also have a really vibrant pickleball
community here in Falmouth.
P&R: What are some of the benefits, as
well as challenges, of offering a wide
range of programs for seniors?
D'Ascanio: The greatest benefits for seniors are the socialization aspects and
just the comradery, making new friends
and connecting with old friends. Another benefit is just having a place in town
where they can gather and have some
fun. Some of the challenges that we are
having are trying to partner with someone to be able to offer the ride programs.
We have a program right now that's in
the hands of the finance committee to
be able to offer some tax relief for seniors. Our senior services coordinator,
Kim Doyon, is also working with the
volunteer coordinator at Falmouth High

School to try to match " seniors with seniors " to have these students do odd jobs
for senior citizens. We'd love to be able
to offer handyman services, however, it's
difficult to work around liability issues
with recommending someone and them
not working out. So, we're really trying
to develop a volunteer network.
P&R: So, it's safe to say that you all
are offering a lot of programs even
outside the realm of parks and
recreation?
D'Ascanio: Absolutely. We have a robust
senior population, so we have 15-passenger vans and take them on day trips and
outings with lunches, which they love.
We partner with community recreation
areas and we do larger trips. In fact, we
just came back from Ireland, and the average age was 70-something. These are
people who have always wanted to go to
Ireland, but only feel comfortable doing
it with recreation professionals like myself and my colleagues. We've been doing these types of things for a long time
and realize that regionalization for these
types of programs is key in keeping the
price point down for the seniors, and it's
been very successful.
- Cort Jones, Associate Editor for
Parks & Recreation magazine

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