Founded in 1989 by Lynn Peters Adler, J.D. - Centenarian Expert and Older Adults Advocate

National Centenarian Awareness Project/Centenarian Project Inspiring Positive Aging. Our nonprofit organization celebrates
active centenarians as role models for the future of aging. On our BLOG, we discuss centenarians and what it’s like to Live to 100 and Beyond.

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  National Centenarian Awareness Project Mission:

“It is a great distinction to live to 100 years or more.” – Lynn Peters Adler, 1985

ADVOCACY:
For the continued involvement of our elders as integral members of society.
CELEBRATION/RECOGNITION:
NCAP seeks to contact and honor all those 100 years old and older as our living links to history and works with community entities to promote recognition of our eldest citizens. Click to learn about NCAP Centenarian Recognition Program.
INSPIRATION: AGE EXCELLENTLY!
Active centenarians, who display a positive attitude, are role models for the future of aging and inspire us to age excellently.
For more information about the National Centenarian Awareness Project, click on About NCAP and read our blog: www.liveto100and beyond.com

 Now in Kindle Edition

Lynn Adler's first book:
Centenarians: The Bonus Years
is now available in Kindle format: $9.99
Click cover to purchase from Amazon
 


  Counting Centenarians: Lynn Adler on “Celebrate 100″

 


 


Margaret Dunning (103) with her 1930 Packard Roaster

Counting Centenarians: Lynn Adler on “Celebrate 100″
Linda Abbit, 3/17/2014, SeniorPlanet.org

When Lynn Peters Adler was 15 years old, she went shopping with her grandmother for a new winter coat. After they’d made their selection, the salesperson asked Lynn, “How does she want to pay for this?” To which Lynn, her radar in full spin, replied, “Why don’t you ask her?”

What her grandmother, who was in her 60s, said to her on the way home confirmed Lynn’s suspicion: “No one wants to talk with you when you’re old.”

That day the seed was planted that led Adler to her life’s work. She is founder and director of the nonprofit National Centenarian Awareness Project (NCAP), an organization that advocates for seniors’ active involvement in society. NCAP’s goal is to find, honor and celebrate all Americans age 100 or older. The U.S has the largest population of centenarians in the world, and NCAP has a centenarian registry of some 2,000 and counting.

The author with some centenarians friends.

 

Adler considers it a privilege to have known an entire generation of centenarians during her work over the past 28 years. For her most recent book, “Celebrate 100: Centenarian Secrets to Success in Business and Life,” she surveyed more than 500 people who’d reached 100 – her oldest interviewee was over 116. Co-authored with Steven Franklin, the book is a compilation of impressive life stories, wisdom, wit and advice.

Adler defines “active centenarians” as those who still have a modicum of good mental and physical health. She believes these extraordinary people are role models for the future of aging.

We talked to Adler about “Celebrate 100” and NCAP during a recent phone conversation.

Tell us more about the genesis of NCAP.

What I started paying attention to at 15 was that my grandmother really was treated differently, even within our family. I thought it just was not right that as a person became older they were treated differently. I began talking with older people at what was then called the “old folks home,” and I have to credit that experience with my having a rapport with older people that is quite direct.

At 15, I didn’t know the word “ageism.” In fact, the term wasn’t coined until 1969 by Dr. Robert Butler. But by the time I got to law school in the early 1980’s, I recognized what disturbed me so much about what I would call “the shunning.”

After law school I became an active volunteer in Arizona’s aging community. Back then there were so many naysayers. Even people who worked in the field of aging would say to me, “Why do you want to be bothered with those old people? Just leave them where they are. They’re happy there. They don’t want to be invited to a gala celebration.” They were absolutely wrong! I met my first centenarian, fell in love and decided that I would find every centenarian in Arizona, and I pretty much did. There were 271 at the time.

Click to continue reading "Counting Centenarians"

  Featured Article
Next Avenue

PBS logo

7 Life Secrets of Centenarians
Planning to live to 100? Here's a guide from those who have already made it.
By Lynn Peters Adler, J.D. | August 17, 2013

Lynn Peters Adler, J.D., is the co-author, with Steve Franklin, Ph.D., of the new book, Celebrate 100: Centenarian Secrets to Success in Business and Life. She is founder and director of the National Centenarian Awareness Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to celebrating centenarians and combating ageism.
 

Cliff Kayhart with his iPad
Charles "Cliff" Kayhart proudly displays his iPad in the kitchen of his Tennessee home; photo taken April, 2013.
Courtesy Lynn Peters Adler
There is no one pathway to reaching age 100. We all have the opportunity to grab the brass ring in our own way and many of us will. One in 26 baby boomers is now expected to live to 100; legions more will reach the mid-to-late 90s. In Celebrate 100: Centenarian Secrets to Success in Business and Life, the new book I co-authored with Steve Franklin, we share advice distilled from interviews and surveys of more than 500 centenarians. Their insights form a guide to what lies ahead as we inch our way through our 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

How Centenarians Live Now 

Will we still be having fun when we reach 100? A chorus of active centenarians answers a resounding, "Yes!"


Click to continue reading 7 Life Secrets of Centenarians

7 Life Secrets of Centenarians also was published on Forbes.com
 

About Celebrate 100
Centenarians give tips on reaching 100
Originally published: August 8, 2013 11:58 AM
Updated: August 8, 2013 12:36 PM
By PETER KING  pwking@aol.com

It's not the same old story. 

More people are living to 100, and many are crossing the century barrier in relatively good health. From 1980 to 2010, the number of centenarians in the United States grew 66 percent, while the total population grew 36 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As of the 2010 census, there were more than 53,000 Americans 100 or older.

How do you get to 100? One way to find out is to ask centenarians how they made it, which is what Lynn Peters Adler has been doing for almost 30 years. Adler, founder and director of the not-for-profit National Centenarian Awareness Project, has learned from her talks with thousands of centenarians that many share similar personality traits.

 


 "They have a positive yet realistic attitude," she says. While many "young" people -- like those in their 60s and 70s -- might complain about disabilities and a declining quality of life, centenarians typically recognize the limits and cherish their lives. "They accept the losses and changes that come with aging, and don't let it stop them," Adler says. "They find ways to cope, adjust, adapt."

Click to continue reading Newsday article
 

 New Book! 

Celebrate 100: Centenarian Secrets to Success in
 Business and Life



Click on book cover to
purchase
from Amazon

Authors: Steve Franklin, Lynn Peters Adler

A thoroughly enthralling book that proves the truth of the adage, "with age comes wisdom."

Based on video recorded interviews and extensive surveys of more than 500 Centenarians, this unforgettable book brings you into a world few human beings have ever known. What must it be like to have lived an entire century—and not just any century, but one of the most fertile, productive, cataclysmic, revolutionary hundred-year periods in the history of the human race?

Imagine having navigated all of life's personal milestones against the backdrop of the Jazz Age, the Great Depression, two World Wars, the Space Age, the Digital Age, and 9/11; what stories you would have to tell! In their own words, and with no small measure of good humor, these remarkable men and women tell their stories and share their insights on life, business, making it and losing it, great sorrow and joy—and having lived to tell the tale.

  • Distills the wisdom and wit of 500 centenarians into six sections covering the passage of time, career, money, time management, secrets of longevity, and capturing and sharing wisdom
  • Based on over 500 taped interviews and extensive questionnaire surveys developed and conducted by noted experts Steve Franklin and Lynn Peters Adler

Editorial Reviews

"If you want to win with money or life, you need to take a good look at other people who are winning. If you want to know how to win over the long haul, you need to talk to people who have a lot of life experience under their belts and who've still come out ahead. That's exactly what you'll get in Celebrate 100."
Dave Ramsey, New York Times bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio show host


"Anyone who has ever listened to old men tell stories in a town square or heard grandmothers and great-grandmothers chatter in the kitchen knows the sheer joy and fascination of it. Now Steve Franklin and Lynn Peters Adler have brought us a book that crackles—and cackles—with just such an experience. Their compilation of centenarian stories, 'secrets' and advice is a touching and helpful gift to our youth-obsessed age."
—Stephen Mansfield, New York Times bestselling author

 
 

My Grandfather, Elmer Askwith, 102
by Kabrina Rozine

Elmer at age 102
Elmer at age 102 is still quite the gardener.
Look at the size of that carrot!

Elmer Askwith was born in 1911, the fourth of five children. He grew up in a rural farm community in a family that, like their neighbors, had big hearts but little money. One way of passing the time was to listen to and play music. Elmer’s older sister, Georgina, loved to play the piano that the Askwith family was fortunate enough to have in their home. Elmer enjoyed the music and yearned to get his own violin. As a youth, he browsed the Sears and Roebuck catalog. It contained everything from toys to clothing, and even houses (in fact more than one family from his community purchased a home through this venue).

Elmer spotted a violin in the catalog and dreamed of being able to buy it. The cost was $7.00, which was quite a bit of money for a family that “didn’t have two pennies to rub together.” Elmer was excited when he realized that the township was offering 10 cents per rat tail to help control the rat population. He was even more appreciative of the fact that his father said he could keep all of the money that he could earn through rat trapping.

Click to continue reading Elmer's story.

 

 

 

 About National Centenarian Awareness Project (NCAP)
National Centenarian Awareness Project (NCAP) a nonprofit  organization, was founded by Lynn Peters Adler, J.D., who has devoted her career to honoring, studying, and advocating for increased recognition and inclusion of centenarians and all elders as a natural part of the fabric of our society.  Lynn has a wealth of information about this increasing segment of our population and centenarians in particular. Because of her rapport with this special group, she has a unique understanding of their needs, thoughts, behavior and philosophies of life. Lynn’s work is predicated on the belief that ageism in America is both wrong and unnecessary. 

Lynn’s voice on centenarians, longevity and positive aging, with an emphasis on quality of life issues, has been heard throughout the United States. She continued her long-standing involvement in community service with her terms on the Arizona Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging (www.azgovernor.gov/gaca)  and the Arizona Attorney General’s Senior Advisory Council.  For ten years she served as

Lynn Peters Adler with centenarians Rosie Ross, Lillian Cox, Elsa Hoffmann, Karl Hartzell and Dorothy Young
 
chairperson of the Phoenix Mayor’s Aging Services Commission.  She founded the Arizona Centenarian Program during her first term on the Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging in the mid 1980s. (click for more: About Lynn Peters Adler)

Lynn, through her company Sterling Resources Inc., is a consultant to businesses on programs relating to aging, longevity, centenarians and others of advanced age. She also serves as a catalyst to bring active centenarians to the public’s attention, often through print and broadcast media.
 

      Lynn Peters Adler (center) with centenarians (l-r) "Rosie"   
      Ross, Lillian Cox, Elsa Hoffmann and Karl Hartzel. Dorothy
      Young, inset.

      Click to read more about the "Fab Five" and
      the Barbara Walters ABC Special
"Live to be 150
."  
   
 Click here to read bios of each of the "Fab Five."

Direct email to: adler@NCAP100s.org
602-363-8980
- cellphone
6-2018

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