Avenidas: Embedding a Senior Planet Center in Palo Alto

The challenge

Avenidas, a 50-year old nonprofit dedicated to delivering high-quality programs and services to older adults and renowned for its excellence, innovation, and best practices in the field of aging, underwent a $20 million restoration including the addition of a new building on its historic campus in downtown Palo Alto.  Located at the symbolic heart of Silicon Valley, Avenidas wanted to offer world-class technology programs to its 6,500+ members, but had many other competing priorities that were needed to help older adults in their community remain as active, engaged, and healthy as possible. Avenidas tuned to OATS to bring world-class innovation and technology programs to their new campus.

The strategy

In June 2019, OATS brought its world-class Senior Planet program to Avenidas, offering a range of relevant technology-themed programming while focusing on expanding the range of program offerings to adapt to the unique local high-tech culture and needs and desires of older adults in the area. OATS would also focus on building a true “membership” model for the Senior Planet Center, hosting special events, member-driven programming, and great speakers from the area in order to establish Senior Planet @ Avenidas as the hub of high-tech innovation and digital culture innovation for the network of Senior Planet Centers across the country.

The solution

OATS would build a Senior Planet Center in the newly-developed highly-modern building on Avenidas’s main campus in Palo Alto. An extensive survey of local older adults was conducted, and programs rolled out that best responded to the needs, desires, and ambitions of the local senior population. Due to the location and the tech-oriented culture of Silicon Valley, OATS prioritized more “high tech” devices and programs than before, and continues to interact with local seniors, tech pioneers, university students, and the community to customize a Senior Planet experience that caters to the unique location and population in which it is located.