EXPLORATIONS - For People Over 55, the World Is a Classroom Through Elderhostel

EXPLORATIONS - For People Over 55, the World Is a Classroom Through Elderhostel

By Marilyn Christiano / Broadcast date: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 VOICE ONE: I'm Barbara Klein. VOICE TWO: And I'm Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we begin a series about ways older Americans are keeping mentally active. We tell about Elderhostel, an organization that considers the world its classroom.

(MUSIC) VOICE ONE: The American Census Bureau estimates that more than seventy-five million of the three hundred million Americans are baby boomers. Baby boomers were born between nineteen forty-six and nineteen sixty-four. That was when the birth rate in the United States rose sharply, or boomed, after the end of World War Two.

Every day in two thousand six, almost eight thousand baby boomers turned sixty years old. They are at the age when they are beginning to think about retiring from their jobs. They are wondering what they want to do with this new period in their lives.

VOICE TWO: Policy makers are concerned about the problems government must try to solve because of the rising percentage of older Americans. Each year fewer people will be working and paying into the Social Security System to support an increasing number of retired people. Medical costs are rising sharply. More housing is needed for older people who cannot care for themselves.

Most people who have already retired, or are about to, have other concerns about growing older. They do not want to sit at home and slowly die. They know to stay healthy they need to keep active – not just physically but mentally.

Private groups and non-profit organizations are meeting this need. They offer many kinds of programs for aging Americans to keep their minds active. Experts say these programs will expand and change as baby boomers join them.

Elderhostel volunteers working as keepers at a historic lighthouse in Rhode IslandVOICE ONE: Different kinds of continuing education programs exist now in all areas of the United States. For example, colleges let older Americans take classes at a reduced cost. Museums, cultural organizations and non-profit groups offer many educational experiences, especially for retired people.

Older Americans can learn new skills or improve old ones through schools that offer classes in art, photography, writing, handcrafts or languages. And hundreds of thousands of people over the age of fifty-five take part every year in educational and travel programs offered by Elderhostel.

(MUSIC) VOICE TWO: It was nineteen seventy-five. Marty Knowlton, a former teacher, had recently returned to the United States. He had spent four years walking through Europe. He had enjoyed all the things he saw and did. He had enjoyed sleeping in the low-cost hotels for young people, called youth hostels. And he had noted that many older Europeans seemed more active than older Americans.

Mister Knowlton thought there should be ways older Americans could remain active and continue to learn after retiring from their jobs. He shared stories of his travels with David Bianco, an official at the University of New Hampshire. Mister Bianco suggested the university create an "elder hostel." The name became the idea for a program for older people providing exciting learning experiences in simple but comfortable places to stay.

VOICE ONE: In the summer of nineteen seventy-five, five colleges in New Hampshire offered the first Elderhostel programs to two hundred twenty people. The idea was an immediate success. Five years later, twenty thousand people took part in Elderhostels in all fifty states and most of Canada.

Many different subjects were taught in the Elderhostels -- from history to nature to music to art. People stayed in rooms at colleges, motels or cabins. The cost of an Elderhostel included all meals, a place to stay and teachers or guides. The model remained the same as Elderhostel grew. It now is the largest non-profit education travel organization for adults over fifty-five.

VOICE TWO: Elderhostel now offers more than eight thousand programs a year in the United States, Canada and more than ninety other countries. More than one hundred sixty thousand people take part every year. Their average age is seventy-two. One man who is one hundred three has taken part in more than one hundred Elderhostels and is still going strong.

(MUSIC) VOICE ONE:

The Art Institute of Chicago offers an Elderhostel program