Building EngAGE Beverly
What's happening now, what we're working toward, and how we're getting there.
When our family began searching, we could not find what we were hoping for close to home: gatherings that feel genuinely human, where meaningful engagement supports cognition and wellbeing and every person is known for who they are, not just what they need. EngAGE Beverly is building that hub in Beverly.
The Beginning
EngAGE Beverly began the way a lot of things begin in a family, with a problem we could not solve and a refusal to accept the answers we were being offered.
When we started looking for a place that would feel like home for "Pops," my father-in-law, after his Alzheimer's diagnosis, what we found felt binary: exhausting in-home care on one side, large institutional facilities on the other, and very little in between. Most of what we found on Chicago's South Side was too big, too clinical, too inconsistent, or simply not built for the person Pops is. We kept looking and kept coming up short, and at some point the question shifted from what do we do to what would the right place actually look like, and finally, how can we build it?
The full story is told in Pops's Story. This page picks up where that one leaves off.
Our Inspiration: The Elderwise Way
EngAGE Beverly did not start from a blank page. It stands in the lineage of Elderwise™, the Seattle organization that has spent decades practicing spirit-centered care: the conviction that a person is always more than a diagnosis, and that the human spirit remains whole even as memory changes. Their book, The Elderwise Way, written by Sandy Sabersky and Ruth Neuwald Falcon, gave language and shape to what our family had been searching for, and its fingerprints are on everything we are building in Beverly. Julie writes about that influence in What The Elderwise Way Taught Me About Building EngAGE Beverly.
Our gratitude runs deeper than a book. Elderwise welcomed us to Seattle with open arms, an invitation that let us watch spirit-centered care in action and meet the people who live it every day. A special thank-you belongs to Shanta Sabersky, who taught and modeled for Julie the universal approach to spirit-centered relationships, and who shares her generous spirit with everyone lucky enough to learn from her. We have come to think of it as ripples: one way of being with people, spreading outward to touch lives far beyond one room in Seattle. EngAGE Beverly is proud to be one of those ripples, carrying the work to Chicago's South Side.
Seattle taught us something more. At The Memory Hub, a warm, non-clinical gathering place where families find their footing after a diagnosis and many organizations come together under one roof, we saw what it looks like when a whole community weaves memory support into one place. It is a living picture of the connected neighborhood hub we are building in Beverly, and a second source of inspiration standing alongside Elderwise.
What We're Building
EngAGE Beverly is a neighborhood hub of memory-friendly programming for older adults and the care partners who walk alongside them. Rather than one place with one format, the hub offers varied day programming over the course of the week: small gatherings with real conversation, creativity, movement, and shared meals, each one calm, familiar, and meaningful.
The lineup begins with the EngAGE Literary Café, a multi-week series built around a shared book, music, creative expression, and a meal. From there the week fills in: an "Old Friends Club" Community Café, and more, each a different door into the same welcoming community. Care partners are woven in throughout, with shared meals and ongoing communication that keeps families close.
The model rests on a few commitments that shape every other decision we make:
Warm, personal, and small by design
Familiar settings, warm rhythms, and a deliberately small scale, designed so members feel they have arrived somewhere they belong, not somewhere they have been placed.
Relationship-centered care
Consistent faces, intentional intergenerational connection, and the kind of trust that builds in a strong community, where people care about one another and honor what they value.
Evidence-based practice
Daily rhythms shaped by the research on what protects cognition, supports wellbeing, and builds belonging in older adults, particularly those experiencing memory changes.
Family as care partners
Care partners welcomed into the community, with shared meals, ongoing communication, and a model that treats families as partners.
Open to the neighborhood
Opportunities for the whole community to volunteer, connect, and become part of making EngAGE Beverly richer and more vibrant, through classes, gatherings, and everyday neighborly connection.
Our Vision
EngAGE Beverly begins in one neighborhood, on purpose. We chose to start small and close to home, building the place our own family went looking for and could not find. Beverly is where we are proving the model: a neighborhood hub where older adults, especially those navigating memory changes, and their care partners gather, connect, and belong.
Our hope reaches past one neighborhood. If Beverly shows what is possible, and as community support grows, we would love to see EngAGE take root elsewhere across Chicago, an EngAGE Ashburn, an EngAGE Chatham, an EngAGE Humboldt Park, each one shaped by its own neighbors and named for the place it calls home.
We are starting where we live, and building something other neighborhoods could one day make their own. If that is a vision you would like to be part of, there are many ways to help us build the first one well.
The Founder
EngAGE Beverly is led by Julie Singler, EdD, Founder and Executive Director. Julie spent 18 years in Chicago Public Schools, leading urban schools and advocating for students and families too often underserved by the systems meant to support them. She holds a doctorate in Urban Education Leadership and brings that same systems-thinking, and the same insistence that people be known rather than managed, to this work. EngAGE Beverly is the continuation of her life's work: building something better when what exists falls short, this time for older adults and the families who love them, beginning with her own.
The Board
EngAGE Beverly is governed by a board of directors who bring expertise in finance and nonprofit leadership, estate planning and elder law, hospice and palliative medicine, and decades of executive leadership in services to older adults in Chicago.
Bob Otter
A 40+ year member of the Chicago Board of Trade and a seasoned nonprofit board leader who has served as director and chair of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, Chicago Jesuit Academy, and the Hinsdale Public Library. He brings financial sophistication, governance experience, and high integrity to the EngAGE Beverly board.
Mark R. Singler, JD
A lifetime Beverly resident and one of Illinois's top-rated estate planning attorneys, with a practice that encompasses elder law. A Super Lawyers honoree and co-founder of FMS Law Group LLC, he has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Mark brings sharp legal grounding, deep Beverly roots, and steady judgment.
Dr. Ann Navarro-Leahy, MD
A board-certified hospice and palliative medicine physician, Castle Connolly Top Doctor, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado. Her clinical expertise, systems-level thinking, and commitment to advocating for older adults bring a vital voice to the board.
Beth O'Grady
More than four decades in the field of aging, including thirteen years leading the Coalition of Limited English Speaking Elderly (CLESE). A longtime Beverly resident, lifelong learner, and active community leader. These experiences and a life well-lived have taught Beth what matters most: family, purpose, gratitude, and connection.
Where we gather
EngAGE Beverly is grateful to make its home at Bethany Union Church in Beverly, whose congregation generously shares its space so our gatherings can happen. We are honored to be their neighbors and partners in caring for this community.