Reflections on aspects of a good community featuring vibrant Northfield senior citizens.
About the project:
I spent much of the winter of 2014 going around Northfield, Minnesota, by taxi, carrying a voice recorder and a desire to share the opinions and stories of Northfield’s senior citizens. I had heard that Northfield is an excellent place to retire, partially due to the cultural opportunities brought in by Carleton and St. Olaf colleges, and also due to other factors including the availability of medical care and public transportation. I wanted to investigate the extent to which Northfield is a good place to be an elder and to shed some light on broader questions of aging. Northfield seemed like an important place to ask the question, “What makes a community good for senior citizens?”
So, I asked that question to senior citizens and city officials alike. I asked them about their lives, their stories, their winding paths to Northfield. I asked them how the community could improve.
What I found were vibrant people, articulate ideas, good stories, and a few important critiques.
After sorting through hours of footage, I created this podcast, “The Northfield Elder Project.” This is my final project for Doug McGill’s class, “A Journey in Journalism,” at Carleton College.
Available for download here
To contact the author:
Katie Koza: kozak@carleton.edu
Copyright © 2014 Katie Koza