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SWPPA & AFGP in the News

SWPPA Board President Elizabeth Mulvaney was interviewed for and quoted in the following Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article: Older Pennsylvanians face social isolation and its real health consequences | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Age-Friendly was mentioned (along with a video) in this op-ed from Ray Landis in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star: The three things the Pa. Legislature did in 2021 to help older Pennsylvanians | Ray E. Landis – Pennsylvania Capital-Star (penncapital-star.com)

The video is linked in the article and here: Digital Access for Older Adults – Age Friendly Pittsburgh – YouTube

We are a 31-year-old, volunteer-led organization with more than 300 members representing more than one million older adults across 10 counties of Southwestern Pennsylvania: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington and Westmoreland counties. Our members include organizations and businesses, as well as individual members such as civic leaders, business owners, medical professionals, scholars, professionals in aging services, students and residents of all ages.

We act as a catalyst to promote policy, program and systems change that improves quality of life for all people, particularly for our oldest generations. We provide a neutral forum for collaboration, education, networking and advocacy.

We offer both individual and organizational/business memberships. We engage our members through education, training, advocacy, networking and collaborative efforts. Members are invited to serve on one or more of our committees. Visit our Membership page to learn more about membership and sign up to join us!

Linda Doman
Executive Director
Eastern Area Adult Services

Linda Doman has dedicated her entire career to the advancement of quality senior services for older adults of all incomes. Immediately following completion of her graduate studies, she began her professional journey as the first paid executive director of the Pittsburgh Chapter, Alzheimer’s Association.  After several years of successfully growing and stabilizing the Pittsburgh Chapter, she came to work with Presbyterian Senior Care as executive director of Woodside Place Alzheimer’s care community where she did an outstanding job growing the program including the launch of a Day Center program. After several years, she moved to Vintage Senior Center and Adult Day Care program, where she evolved these programs and raised-up their visibility and sustainability. Following this, she moved to Eastern Area Adult Services, where she once again grew program participation and has served as a transformational leader/CEO.

 In addition to her demanding role with EAAS, she was willing to assume the chair role for SWPPA’s board of directors during a critically important time in its history. Linda was Instrumental in transitioning the board to an all-volunteer board and arranging for a variety of contract services. During this time, Linda, became highly committed to the WHO’s age-friendly models and Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh.

Linda is a person of great integrity and is highly strategic and a natural collaborator. She has long committed to SWPPA’s core value for collaboration to partner across the broad health care and senior services continuum.

Dr. Shannah Tharp-Gilliam
Director of Research & Evaluation
Homewood Children’s Village

Dr. Shannah Tharp-Gilliam earned a BS from Georgetown University and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in Psychology.  She has worked as social scientist with a demonstrated history of supporting non-profits working to transform the lives of children and families.  For over 10 years, she has served as the Director of the Office of Research and Evaluation for Homewood Children’s Village.  Prior to that, she worked with the Rand Corporation.  During the pandemic, she recognized the horribly negative impact COVID-19 had on older members of the community, isolating them from families and friends.  She realized the harm that isolation was causing and saw the potential vaccines had for improving their lives.  She jumped into working with a wide array stakeholders to assure that all members of the community, particularly older adults and people with disabilities, had access to vaccinations.  We are honoring her today for the work she did in helping to develop the region’s community-led vaccine clinics and assuring that people of color and under-resourced communities had access to vaccines.