MISSOULA — For seniors, finding the necessary wellness information and support can be difficult, so one Missoula senior living facility is trying to create a solution.
The first annual Senior Living Expo at the Village Senior Residence near Fort Missoula was held Friday from noon to 4 p.m. The event was a chance for older adults to access a variety of resources all at once.
Village decided to host the Senior Expo because they noticed their residents were having difficulty reaching resources.
“Rather than us tell all of our residents about all of the services that a lot of the vendors in the community provide, we thought, why not have the vendors come here and tell them themselves?” Denise Zimmerman, Village executive director said at the event.
The expo hosted vendors from a variety of different spaces, including housing support, holistic health and hearing care.
One of the vendors was Vibrant Hearing, an audiology center in Missoula that provides frequent outreach to seniors for hearing checks and hearing aid cleanings.
“That's kind of one of our hopes and passions too is just to kind of bring that awareness out there,” audiology assistant Trisa Paul said at the event. “Like it would be great to get your hearing tested once a year, and keep your hearing aids clean.”
For seniors with mobility or mental health issues, connecting with community resources can be all the more difficult.
“Some of them tend to not go out, to stay in, not move around, and so the mobility issue I think is a real hamper when you're trying to get information or wish you had the information,” Village resident, Jim Clark, said. “And some people just don't know what's out there– they don't know what they don't know.”
Clark and his wife have lived at Village Senior Residence for a year and a half. He says the expo is helpful not only for his fellow residents, but for aging Missoulians who should prepare for the future.
“For us, this change came very quickly, and so we really hadn't seen much in terms of what was available in Missoula until the need came,” Clark says. “So I would encourage people just to look ahead, take a look at what might be needed in the future and then see what's available.”
Zimmerman has noticed a similar stressor among individuals who wait until the last moment to prepare for senior living.
“Aging is scary and it's not easy,” she said. “And so a lot of times people have to have a crisis happen in their life before they start thinking about, ‘Oh gosh, I should know more about this.’ And so then usually people aren't thinking very clearly in a crisis, so we like to try to reach people before they get to that point.”
The expo also included free lunch, a cake walk, an art exhibit, dollar bingo, gift basket drawings, a facility tour and a welcome speech from Missoula Mayor Andrea Davis.
“A day like this for me is just like another additional lifelong learning opportunity, learn about the services that are here in Missoula and what they offer and how to get a hold of them, how to make the contact and then find out more,” Clark said.
