As She Retires, Kim Parbst Looks Back on Her Care for Seniors

For the past decade, Kim Parbst has served as Director of Senior Services for Catholic Charities of Long Island, the culmination of her career working on behalf of seniors.

Her love of older adults extends back further, to her childhood, when she would spend summers with her grandparents in Chicago. She accompanied her grandmother on outings playing cards, quilting with friends and offering refreshments at church as part of the Ladies Aid group.

Kim remembers how interested she was in learning about her grandparents and their friends. The California native went on to earn a master’s degree in gerontology from Cal State Long Beach before beginning her career at a retirement community in Anaheim.

“Seniors are my jam,” she says with a smile.

After moving to New York with her husband, John, a college professor, she worked nearly 15 years as the administrator of Siena Village, a senior housing property previously-operated by Catholic Health on the campus of St. Catherine’s Hospital in Smithtown.

When Kim first came to CCLI she was an administrator in senior services before being named director later that first year.

As her retirement nears, she notes that July 9 will be her final day in the office. She’s grateful for her staff’s good work and for the support from other departments. “We have the most wonderful group of people who clearly live the mission of Catholic Charities working to help individuals in their time of need,” she said.

Her department offers many services to Long Island’s senior community. Meals on Wheels drivers deliver more than 4,000 nutritious meals each week to homebound clients in Nassau and Suffolk counties. Three senior community service centers provide members with delicious meals, opportunities for socialization and recreation, and education for healthy living. Two Congregate Meal Sites, along with others being planned, are another good source of meals and socialization. Senior Case Management provides a connection to services offered by government agencies, parishes and community organizations.

Kim shares her wealth of knowledge on senior issues. She offers a reminder that Long Island’s growing senior population is not the same as a decade or two ago. These days, seniors work well into their 60s, sometimes longer, meaning that members coming to CCLI’s senior centers have an average age in their late 70s or early 80s.

The social connection that seniors encounter there every day is “crucial to successful aging,” both cognitively and physically, as well as emotionally, she explains. The connection may no longer happen in their home environment given changing circumstances. Neighbors they knew 40 or 50 years ago, when they first moved in, may have moved or passed away, and they may not have relationships with younger residents who now live next door.

“They have a connection with both the staff and other clients at the senior center,” Kim said, with members forming friendships.

Those enrolled in CCLI senior programs range from ages 60 to 100-plus meaning that some have lived through the Depression, World War II, women entering the workplace in much greater numbers, as well as more recent challenges such as grandparents raising grandchildren and addiction and mental health issues within our communities. “I have such admiration for the population,” Kim said, adding that she’s thoroughly enjoyed meeting and hearing the stories of so many seniors at Catholic Charities and in her previous jobs.

Connecting them to beneficial services is a special blessing. Supervising the senior case management program gives her a role in providing resources to seniors “that will help them stay engaged, will allow them to afford their meals, their insurance, their housing expenses,” she said. “That to me has been the most rewarding part.”

After retirement, Kim anticipates returning to volunteer with CCLI, and at Stony Brook University Medical Center, where she was successfully treated for cancer last year.

She and her husband, parents to two grown children, would also like to travel more frequently and think now is a perfect time to begin. They’ve already planned three trips, the first to visit their son in Colorado, and then to see her mother in California before traveling with her to visit family and friends in Chicago.