For the past five years, the Mayor's Initiative on Aging (MIOA) has served as a wellness and safety campaign for Miami-Dade County residents 55 and over. It was planned and implemented by the Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez in partnership with the Alliance for Aging Inc. and the Miami-Dade County Health Department's Consortium for a Healthier Miami-Dade. The Consortium’s Elder Issues Committee has served as the planning body of this initiative.

Since the launch of Phase I in January 2005, the Mayor's Initiative on Aging: To Life! has provided seniors with free resources to manage their health including free health screenings, educational materials, and fitness activities. One of the primary program objectives was to raise awareness on the importance of healthy aging. At the end of Phase I, Health Foundation of South Florida announced the launch of a Healthy Aging Regional Collaborative Initiative and dedicated $7.5 million in grants over the next five years for this initiative to promote and preserve the health of older adults www.healthyagingsf.org.

Today, the goals of the Mayor’s Initiative on Aging: To Life! and the Consortium’s Elder Issues Committee continue to be:

• Educate stakeholders, providers, and residents on the cost effective benefits of healthy lifestyles and health promoting environments.
• Advocate for public health policies.
• Disseminate information on available funding opportunities from private sources and from local, state, and federal levels.
• Promote collaborations that ensure Miami-Dade is collectively working on achieving community health and a vast provider network thus avoiding duplicity.

Elder Issues Committee members are presently exploring how to best prepare for the upcoming phenomena of the Baby Boomers Generation. The committee has created a working group to look at how to best plan and make available information and resources related to job readiness and placement, retirement planning, caregiving, financial security, civic engagement, and to continue to promote healthy lifestyles. Furthermore, the committee is discussing how to best prepare the aging network and nonprofit organizations by creating free workshops and forums tailored specifically to provide capacity building and strategic planning to those entities that will be involved in providing services to the Boomers.

This year, the committee has enlisted the assistance of AARP, Miami-Dade County Library System, Miami-Dade Coalition on Aging, the Alliance for Aging, Inc., South Florida Workforce, Health Foundation of South Florida, Center on Nonprofit Effectiveness (C-One), the Alzheimer’s Association, Miami Jewish Home and Hospital, STEPS in The Right Direction, VITAS Innovative Hospice Care, AvMed, Tenet Health Systems, FIU School of Social Work (Geriatric), Health Council of South Florida, Florida Heart Research Institute, and many other community service providers to develop recommendations and create a work plan for this year.

Organizations interested in joining the Elder Issues Committee/MIOA Baby Boomers Planning Work Group or want to attend the monthly meetings, please contact Marylin Rey at 305 375-5071 or by e-mail at M13@miamidade.gov. The Elder Issues/MIOA Committee Meetings are held the last Tuesday of every month in the Mayor’s Conference Room 29-A, 111 NW 1 Street, Suite 2910, Miami, Florida at 2:30 P.M.

Learn about the accomplishments and milestones reached during the first phase of the Mayor's Initiative on Aging. Read the Final Report.

The Miami-Dade County Health Department's Consortium for a Healthier Miami-Dade Elder Issues Sub-Committee continues to act as the planning body for the Mayor’s Initiative on Aging. For more information on other committee meetings, activities and events of the Consortium, please visit:www.healthymiamidade.org or call (305) 278-0442.

As the area agency on aging for Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties, the Alliance for Aging, Inc. has played an important role in the planning and implementation of the Mayor’s Initiative on Aging. For more information on available services, activities and upcoming events, please visit: www.allianceforaging.org or call the Elder Helpline at (305) 670-HELP (4357).