“ROMEO” stands for “retired older males consuming out” — and it is one option to preserve older guys from being too remoted. Simply do not name it a assist group!
MILES PARKS, HOST:
Self-reliance is a core American trait, and males specifically embrace it. So how do you supply assist to somebody who does not suppose they want it? Ashley Milne-Tyte has extra from the coast of Maine. And a warning, this story mentions suicide statistics.
ASHLEY MILNE-TYTE, BYLINE: Maine has the oldest inhabitants within the nation. Jess Maurer is govt director of the Maine Council on Ageing. She says getting older might be difficult for everybody, together with males.
JESS MAURER: We sort of, as a stereotype, have this concept that males are OK. That is a stereotype that is incorrect.
MILNE-TYTE: Males over 75 have the best suicide price within the U.S. There are lots of causes for this, says Mary Gagnon of NAMI Maine, a psychological well being nonprofit. Amongst them are loss, illness, the notion of being a drain on others…
MARY GAGNON: For males, being a burden is admittedly tough for them.
MILNE-TYTE: …And social isolation. However, she says…
GAGNON: The enemy of suicide is connection.
MILNE-TYTE: One effort to attach older males with others is occurring in Harpswell, Maine, a coastal group the place volunteering is large, particularly round meals.
SURREY HARDCASTLE: After which we have got American chop suey right here, if you would like to see that.
MILNE-TYTE: It began when this volunteer-led group, Harpswell Ageing at Residence, observed males have been lacking from a number of their actions. Then drivers for his or her selfmade meals supply service encountered many single, older males who did not get out or cook dinner. Here is volunteer Surrey Hardcastle.
HARDCASTLE: So that they’re consuming cereal or sizzling canines or a peanut butter sandwich, and that is not an excellent long-term answer.
MILNE-TYTE: She grabbed one other volunteer, Tom Mahoney, and tasked him with developing with one thing that will get males out and socializing with different guys. Mahoney says he needed to be cautious how he framed the thought.
TOM MAHONEY: If we stated it was a assist group for males, they are not going to come back (laughter) as a result of it will point out or say to them, I am weak, I would like this. And we do not need to be perceived as being weak.
MILNE-TYTE: He and others landed on a month-to-month lunch named ROMEO – retired older man consuming out. He acquired the thought from different grassroots ROMEO teams across the nation. The most recent lunch had round 55 guys in attendance. One among them is Sam Powers. He is traveled everywhere in the world. He is now 80, lives alone, and he had a stroke final summer season, which has affected his voice.
Would you describe your self as fairly impartial?
SAM POWERS: Oh, yeah, stubbornly, stupidly impartial.
MILNE-TYTE: Powers says he is met two or three new folks at every lunch, and that is as shut as he’ll get to saying the lunches assist him. As we drive away from Powers’ condo, Mahoney says there’s nothing incorrect with males being self-reliant.
MAHONEY: However we nonetheless have a necessity, like anybody else, to be related to folks. That is what he was lacking however wasn’t saying.
MILNE-TYTE: Jim Hays is not going to say it both. He is a lifelong Mainer and retired harbormaster of close by Bailey Island. He now attends the free ROMEO lunches, too.
JIM HAYS: We males – we have labored all our lives, and it is onerous to get out of the chair and to become involved with one thing. , we lose our contacts with the skin world, and it takes one thing like this to drag us again in.
MILNE-TYTE: However he says the pulling goes nicely. Surrey Hardcastle agrees. She says the ROMEO males are happening to get collectively at different instances.
HARDCASTLE: It’s totally, very thrilling. It is doing simply what we wished it to do and simply what all of the analysis says is required.
MILNE-TYTE: To encourage older males to turn out to be more healthy and fewer remoted by means of human connection. For NPR Information, I am Ashley Milne-Tyte.
PARKS: In the event you or somebody you realize is experiencing a disaster, you possibly can name or textual content 988 – simply these three numbers, 988 – for the Suicide & Disaster Lifeline.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEAN ANGUS WATSON’S “WALTZ IN SWEATERS”)
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