Margaret Schweinhaut Senior Center 

1000 Forest Glen Road, Silver Spring 

As prepared 

Good Afternoon! This is quite a turnout!  I’d like to thank OATS, the Senior Planet Montgomery program, Allison Adams, and Amanda DiFilippo and all the folks at Margaret Schweinhaut for putting together such a great event.   

And thank you to all of our graduates and their families for having the courage to try, for proving that we are never too old to learn, and for showing that people over 60 have a lot of good stories left to share. 

Two years ago, I started the Senior Planet Montgomery program -- with the support of the County Council, OATS, the Department of Technology Services, the Libraries, and the Recreation Department’s Senior Centers and TeenWorks program -  to continue this arc of learning.  

Through Senior Planet Montgomery, we wanted to make Montgomery County a place with not only the best K-12 schools, and community colleges, but also the best place for people over 60 to learn: to learn how to get news at the speed of light; to learn to create online businesses and services; and to engage digitally with their family and community.   

We made Senior Planet Montgomery part of ultraMontgomery because we wanted to enable businesses to reach the approximately 20 percent of the population that will be over 60 years old. And I predict, that in 30 years, people will scratch their heads in disbelief that there was time when older adults didn’t know how to use the Internet as well as our grandkids.  

It is fitting that today, we are celebrating your graduation at the Margaret Schweinhaut Senior Center. Margaret Collins Schweinhaut was a local activist who became a Maryland Delegate and Senator.  She urged the formation of the the Maryland Commission on Aging in 1959 and served as First Chair.  

She worked to pass 11 bills to improve the lives of the elderly, and her greatest success was improving treatment of older adults in nursing homes.  

Today, I think she would be very proud to see all these current and past graduates, taking free courses to learn to use the Internet, and to be empowered to continue their learning to learn to manage medical appointments, use digital health records, communicate with doctors online, and to do research about assisted living services and facilities, all by using the Internet.   

And for these reasons, I am proud to announce today that Montgomery County will officially designate the Margaret Schweinhaut Senior Center as the south County headquarters for Senior Planet Montgomery.   

We will have a designated training room right here.   

The Department of Technology Services has installed a FiberNet connection to the Schweinhaut Center, and by next month, we will offer robust free wifi available throughout the center and iPads for use within the Center.   

And Senior Planet Montgomery, with the help of our newest partners, the JCA Inter-ages Tech Connect program and Gilchrist Immigrant Resource Centers, will host classes, workshops and tech explore lectures here and throughout the County.  

To the Senior Planet Montgomery Spring 2018 Graduates I say, congratulations on your accomplishment; for setting aside your fear of the new; for making time to invest in empowering yourself; and for being a reminder that - out our age - best is still truly yet to come.  

Congratulations graduates!    

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