MANKATO — As an older Mankato resident, Diana Gabriel said she benefits from the socialization aspects the Blue Earth County Library brings to the community.
“I belong to their book club and it’s fabulous. I bring my grandchildren here. I think the library staff are very cognizant of that,” she said, referring to the library’s groups and classes for different age groups.
Gabriel was among dozens of attendees at the library Wednesday providing feedback to the Age-Friendly Mankato and North Mankato Coalition about their action plan to make the community more accessible to older adults.
The coalition, made up of members from VINE Faith in Action, the Greater Mankato Diversity Council, several community health organizations and more, hosted local open houses this week to gain feedback on three main goals for seniors: communication and information, social participation and social inclusion.
Gabriel said she believes having VINE in town keeps a lot of focus on engagement for people over 55 but that she thinks the area could offer more entertainment options for a broader population.
Both North Mankato and Mankato are part of the coalition’s efforts and joined AARP’s network of age-friendly cities in 2024 and 2025 respectively.
But the initiative really got going back in 2023, VINE CEO Melinda Wedzina said, when they were awarded an Age-Friendly MN Community Grant for around $67,000.
“What we’re hoping to do is get refinements for an action plan. The whole point of our grant from the very beginning in 2023 was to bring these two communities together to the table to seek buy-in from both communities on becoming age-friendly communities,” she said.
She added that the group was especially interested in learning more about social isolation in the community. To that end, they conducted community surveys in 2023 and 2024 and focus groups in 2024 to determine social isolation’s impact.
“We really learned that yes, absolutely — social isolation and loneliness are a problem here in our community, especially with certain pockets of individuals,” Wedzina said.
David Beimers, a faculty member at Minnesota State University and the director of the Chesley Center on Aging, worked with students on administering those surveys.
“The feedback that we received both from our surveys and our focus groups is that we have a really strong foundation. That people are really invested in making the community even more age-friendly,” he said.
VINE Marketing and Communications Manager Paige Schuette also said there’s need to make sure people know what resources are out there.
“Really there are so many resources out there that until you’re in that situation where you need those resources, you might not just be aware of them. That’s a big thing is learning how to communicate that information out to those individuals when they are in need of those services,” she said.
The coalition is in the “community input meetings” phase of their action plan development, and hopes to submit the plan to AARP for review in June.