Our work
Our goal is to help people age well in place. We do this by providing exceptional personal assistance services focused on making it easier to manage regular chores and tasks of daily living. In this way, we help support older citizens in continuing to live active, healthy, involved and independent lives.
Wellbeing is a vital part of our work. With the knowledge we now have of the detrimental effects of loneliness on health [1], companionship and friendship are cornerstones of our approach. Through our services, we hope to help prevent and alleviate loneliness and attendant physical and mental malaise.
As the world’s population ages, birth rates continue to decline, and families are increasingly scattered. This contributes to a substantial reduction in the numbers of family members available for elderhood caregiving.
By 2034, older adults are predicted to outnumber children for the first time in United States history [2]. Wisconsin is number 19 in the Population Reference Bureau’s ranking of states based on their percentage of population aged 65 years or older [3].
As people age, many individuals find their social circles shrinking through a combination of retirement, age-related decreases in mobility and deaths. And of course, each community has its own unique set of locale-based challenges. In their provision of services, states with significant rural areas must address the associated difficulties of access, transport and increased risks of isolation and loneliness.
Having grown up in Roberts, Wisconsin, Silk and Tweed’s founder knows many of the joys and disadvantages of living in and among small towns. Silk and Tweed provides services across St Croix and neighboring counties.
Our business
Silk and Tweed is a public benefit corporation, which means a business that works to provide specific community benefits. The ways in which we are trying to “[have] a material positive impact on society and the environment by [our] operations [as] a benefit corporation taken as a whole, through activities that promote some combination of specific public benefits” are the following:
- Providing low-income or underserved individuals or communities with beneficial products or services. Our Click:ed technology workshops for seniors help make technology easier (and ideally, more fun) to use!
- Preserving the environment. We make each business decision as sustainable as possible.
- Improving human health. Helping to prevent and alleviate loneliness by providing companionship is a foundational aspect of our services. Our non-medical personal assistance focuses on supporting independent living through continued participation in enjoyable and daily activities.
- Promoting the arts, sciences, or advancement of knowledge. Our Click:ed technology workshops for seniors help make technology easier (and ideally, more fun) to use!
- Increasing the flow of capital to entities with a public benefit purpose. Whenever possible, we buy products and services from Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) and women owned businesses who also work to improve their communities.
Why positive aging is important
Aging happens everyday to everyone. It’s an inevitable part of life. The idea that we have all, unfortunately, absorbed over many years of targeted marketing is that aging is something to be avoided. We here at Silk and Tweed strongly disagree!
Having benefited from shared wisdom and kindnesses that result from life experience acquired through age, we are passionate about changing society’s approach to aging from one of anti aging to positive aging. Elderhood is rich and varied [4], and its essential contribution to successful societies should not be ignored!
Research has found that people with positive perceptions of aging live 7.5 more years than those with more negative views [5]. We plan to contribute to advocacy at all different levels – local, regional, state and national – whenever an opportunity arises.
***
Please note:
Silk and Tweed supports independent living through non-medical support in activities of daily living.
***
Footnotes- greatergood.berkeley.edu: Greater Good author interview on the ways in which loneliness hurts us[↩]
- census.gov: Older People Projected to Outnumber Children for First Time in U.S. History[↩]
- prb.org: Which U.S. States Have the Oldest Populations?[↩]
- Louise Aronson: Elderhood[↩]
- apa.org: Longevity Increased by Positive Self-Perceptions of Aging [PDF][↩]