Message from the chair and the president
We are pleased to share our annual report for 2020, a summary of how we used our resources and the impact we made during the year.
In March of 2021, Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging adopted Trellis as a new name (legally an assumed name). We present this report under the name of Trellis.
2020 was indeed an unprecedented year. As the COVID-19 pandemic spiraled, many older adults were suddenly at risk for a new life-threatening disease, isolated and without access to services and supports. Senior housing, assisted living and nursing facilities were under siege — fighting this deadly disease and locking their doors to everyone but essential workers. Family caregivers took on new and more challenging roles.
Like so many other organizations, our employees abruptly went home on March 17, 2020. Once home, many dealt with dramatically different work environments — many balancing childcare and distance learning, competing Zoom calls and fears about health and safety.
In May, the murder of George Floyd and the resulting civil unrest brought racial issues to the forefront and created additional stressors for the people we serve and our staff.
We are proud of how our organization and staff responded to mitigate these stresses:
- Adjusted Older Americans Act funding to make new services such as Telephone Reassurance available to reduce isolation, address mental health issues and surface emerging needs.
- Offered a special Older Americans Act funding cycle to address needs arising out of the pandemic and civil unrest in our communities.
- Developed and launched helpolderadultsMN.org, a searchable database of statewide resources and services to help people access what they needed under the Governor’s stay-at-home order.
- Created new programs such as Juniper’s Social Connect — an online gathering that uses meditation and light physical activity to help people activate, engage and connect.
- Spearheaded advocacy to encourage focus on older adults with challenging access to vaccination resulting in a new partnership with the MN Depts. of Human Services and Health to develop vaccination clinics in the community.
- Co-led advocacy for the Volunteer Driver Coalition to strengthen volunteer driver programs across the state. They became increasingly essential during the pandemic.
A sincere thank you to our partners, funders and collaborators who helped us further our mission of optimizing the health and well-being of older adults and their caregivers.
Kris Orluck
Board Chair
Dawn Simonson
President and CEO
