Hi Villagers - We're resending the January 2011 Newsletter due to some technical issues with links - Sorry for the inconvenience.

As we begin this first year of the new decade, we are excited about the future for the Village and growth for the coming year. We've completed our move into the brand-new Institute on Aging senior campus building at 3575 Geary Boulevard, San Francisco, CA 94118. We are so very lucky that they invited us to be a tenant in their new offices which is just 2 blocks from our old offices. Nothing else has changed and our phone number and FAX remains the same. Please do come by and visit us sometime!

If you are like me and wouldn't dream of starting a diet on a Thursday afternoon at 3:22 PM you will appreciate that January 1st is without a doubt the most auspicious date on which to initiate a major life remodel or character facelift.

Ah -- New Year's resolutions! We all make them. We all break them -- at least most of the time. And yet hope springs annually and we sincerely believe that we can, through sheer will power and determination, become a better, smarter and/or thinner human being.

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At the close of 2010, San Francisco Village (SFV) was proud to be included in recommendations for better aging-in-place, that were prepared by the Budget and Legislative Analyst for the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco. The report entitled, “Aging in Place and Community: Housing Assistance and Other Services for Seniors in San Francisco,” presents several local issues with SFV named in the related legislative recommendations:

Aging-In-Place Issue: San Francisco seniors would benefit from increased access to personal support and home modification services that enable independence.

• Legislative Option 1: Subsidize SF Village membership fees and service fees for low-income seniors.

• Legislative Option 2: Provide SF Village or a comparable organization with a subsidy from the City to pay for member outreach to targeted demographics such as low-income and immigrant seniors.

Growing older does not necessarily mean having to put up with poor vision. There are recent, revolutionary treatments that are proving effective in reducing the impact of long-resistant ocular ailments such as macular degeneration. But the key to prolonging eye health is prevention. And that is the mission is the mission of an organization headquartered here in San Francisco at 1388 Sutter street, Suite 408, San Francisco, 94109.

It's called Prevent Blindness Northern California and I sat down recently to talk to Program Director April Nakayoshi and Chief Executive Officer Wing-See Leung to get a sense of just what this group - it relies on private funding - is all about. "There are a lot of myths out there," said Nakayoshi, "but the fact is: half of all blindness is preventable." And the critical element in this prevention is early and continued screening. It is critical because many forms of eye disease show few symptoms until the process has reached a vision-damaging stage. Glaucoma has been dubbed "the sneak thief of sight" because there is no pain - and hardly noticeable diminishment of peripheral vision - before the disease has worked its effect.

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In November, Christabel Cheung and I traveled to Philadelphia for the National Village Gathering. Over 200 people attended, including about 50 villages in operation, 20 villages in development, and a number of organizations that serve the senior population, including AARP, the National Council on Aging, the Scan Foundation, Center for the Advanced Studies of Aging Services (UC Berkeley), the Pennsylvania Area Agency on Aging, plus more.

The conference was comprised of panel discussions, open discussions, individual speakers, and lots of networking. Christabel was one of three panelists talking about What Keeps Us Up At Night? Attendees were particularly interested in our 24/7 Friendship Line and our unique offering of group memberships. As a village in operation, we are seen to be very innovative among our peers.

Here are some of the exciting things we learned that will make a difference to the future of San Francisco Village: