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Attend a free online retirement planning workshop. Register
The overarching goal of our annual granting program is to identify and partner with researchers and community programmers in order to address the most critical issues faced by our aging population.
We award grants to projects that improve seniors’ health and wellness, promote social engagement for the elderly and pursue innovative research in the field of geriatrics and gerontology. Our grants also lead to the development of valuable resources and a knowledge base for all efforts focused on the building of an age-friendly society.
Priority objectives for our grant program include:
Our grants fall into three funding streams that are connected to the goals of our strategic plan:
Date: ongoing
Grant amount: $25,000
Funding stream: Social isolation
Grantee/partners: Nipissing University
Summary: The researchers at Nipissing will investigate common routes to social isolation and loneliness for someone living with dementia in northeastern Ontario. The outputs of the project include educational resources for professionals and families to both recognize social isolation and loneliness, and implement coping strategies for care partners and people living with dementia.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $50,000
Funding stream: Geriatric research, Social engagement, Health & wellbeing
Grantee/partners: Trent University
Summary: Aiming to improve dignity and respect for seniors, Trent students will build connections with seniors while working together to co-create intergenerational creative assignments that will be embedded within a one semester Psychology of Aging course taught by Dr. Elizabeth Russell. Surveys will assess students’ pre- and post-course ageism awareness, and post-course focus groups and interviews with students and older adults will evaluate the individual impacts of participating in the intergenerational program.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $43,000
Funding stream: Social engagement, Health & wellbeing
Grantee/partners: Compassionate Communities Kingston Canada
Summary: Modelled after the successful U.K. Project, Health Connections Mendip (known as “the town that found the cure to loneliness”) will involve the community in a central role to increase feelings of dignity, respect and improved social relationships. Citizens are trained to become community connectors who “signpost” people to the health care and informal community-led services (educational, social, recreational) that are available but many people don’t know about. Community connectors will also help identify and share services not listed in current directories and help identify gaps in services that need to be filled.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $50,000
Funding stream: Geriatric research, Social engagement, Health & wellbeing
Grantee/partners: The Dementia Society of Ottawa and Renfrew County
Summary: The aim of this project is to develop an audit tool (in collaboration with those affected by dementia) to assess both the age- and dementia-inclusiveness of their communities. To do this, an innovative approach will be used whereby participants are trained as “citizen scientists.” Here, they assist in testing an app-based audit tool accessed through a smartphone or paper-based booklet that allows data to be collected simply, quickly and in real-time. This entails participants recording audio and photos to identify the facilitators and barriers they encounter while ageing in place. This project will result in more age- and dementia-inclusive communities where older adults can be fully engaged.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $50,000
Funding stream: Social engagement, Health & wellbeing
Grantee/partners: Sheridan College
Summary: Working with students from multiple faculties at Sheridan College, the team will create and evaluate a new app (Artfull) that offers five arts engagement opportunities to participants every month, with outcomes gathered monthly. This initiative will help provide older adults with opportunities for connection and self-expression, address social isolation and loneliness, contribute to overall quality of life, and create a sustainable love for the arts. With support, the team will be able to identify and overcome specific barriers to participation in the arts for this age group, including financial constraints, technological challenges and physical/cognitive limitations, which will help older adults to live with dignity and participate in creative activities.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $15,000
Funding stream: Social engagement, Health & wellbeing
Grantee/partners: Canadian Organic Growers – Senior Organic Gardeners
Summary: Senior Organic Gardeners (SOG), in partnership with Just Food and Root in Nature, will provide small garden tools, soil, compost, seeds, and seedlings to isolated seniors in community housing and in their homes. Online seminars on health, wellness and gardening will also be held. Garden coaching will be led by the volunteer garden coach, and health and wellness seminars will be led by a nutritionist. Seedlings will be supplied to community housing residents in five areas of the city. The network of isolated housebound seniors will be broadened for those who wish to garden and connect online with other gardeners. Vegetable planters will be installed to enable seniors to grow vegetables in small spaces while standing. Seniors will also have the opportunity to visit schools that are participating in Growing Up Organic. For the 2023 growing season, SOG is committed to continuing the project they began in 2022 at the Madawan Lodge, a residence for Indigenous seniors.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $5,000
Funding stream: Social engagement, Health & wellbeing
Grantee/partners: Société Alzheimer Society Sudbury-Manitoulin North Bay
Summary: Friendship circle is designed to bring care partners and the person living with dementia together to enjoy activities within the community without fear of judgement, stigma and exclusion. These activities are planned throughout the year in dementia-friendly spaces/locations for social gatherings aimed at reducing social isolation and encouraging physical, emotional and cognitive stimulation, which research has proven can help reduce symptoms and slow the progression of the disease.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $49,903
Funding stream: Seniors’ health & wellness
Grantee/partners: Sinai Health and University Health Network (UHN)
Summary: Navigating senior HIV care can be overwhelming, causing stress for both seniors and their family caregivers within a complex healthcare system. Older adults with HIV also have mistrust in the healthcare system. To simplify this journey and foster trusting healthcare relationships for seniors with complex care needs, UHN and Sinai Health have partnered to create a Geriatric-HIV Partnership Clinic. Staffed with geriatricians, this clinic collaborates with patients, families, and other care providers across Sinai Health and the community to meet seniors care needs.
Their research team has spent the last year evaluating this new program to conduct research and improve the model of care in real time. After conducting numerous interviews with diverse groups of stakeholders, including families, patients, individuals with lived experiences and healthcare professionals (i.e., administrators, and providers), they have identified a need for timely and more clear information to facilitate a better understanding of the services that a geriatrician can provide. The goal of this engagement is to address patient, primary care provider and family-identified informational needs so as to improve health outcomes and engagement within the Geriatric-HIV Partnership Clinic. To successfully pursue this agenda, greater provider, patient and family education around the geriatric-HIV models of care and the Geriatric-HIV Partnership Clinic is needed as a first step towards facilitating and encouraging meaningful enrollment.
Currently, no print or web resources educate seniors with HIV and their families about the role of geriatricians in HIV management, ways to engage with geriatric care providers, and the benefits of participating in the Geriatric-HIV Partnership Clinic. In turn, they are proposing to develop educational resources which will address the above topics and provide patients and families with the background needed to understand how and why to engage with a geriatric during the course of their HIV care.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $17,500
Funding stream: Seniors’ health & wellness
Grantee/partners: Heartland Forest Nature Experience
Summary: This project will facilitate a healthy, safe and active lifestyle for seniors and older adults by promoting the benefits of social inclusion, physical activity and recreation. They are proposing the design and development of a fun and adaptable ‘Nature Challenge Activity Journal for Older Adults’ – designed and launched in May 2024 for use in both the warmer and cooler months. The journal design will be evidence based and outcome focused and be available in booklet form or as a download on our website – both free. Although the activities will be tailored to Heartland Forest’s outdoor natural environment they will be easily adaptable for other nature parks. Thus, expanding the reach of the program regionally, provincially and nationally through our partner network.
The project will combine recreation and leisure for improving the quality of life of individuals based on social, physical, emotional, and cognitive needs. It will include strategies for overcoming any barriers that may impede the pursuit of these endeavors. The goal is to promote health and wellness within the older adult population by pairing exercise education, nature exploration, socialization and the option to journal individual progress. The journal/project will include activity prompts for activities that are available at Heartland Forest and other nature parks relating to: nature photography and art, collecting and gathering natural objects, bird-watching/amateur ornithology, collecting insects/amateur entomology, trail walks and urban poling classes, chair yoga and stretching, drumming circles, life story scrap-booking and wood crafting.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $25,160
Funding stream: Social engagement
Grantee/partners: H’art Centre
Summary: H’art Centre will roll out a new senior’s module, now part of their MixAbilities Inclusive Arts training program, throughout 2024. MixAbilities is their six-module training program designed to enhance access to the arts by ensuring artists and educators are trained to effectively and empathetically support participants who are Deaf and those with disabilities. The new senior module, developed in 2023 and supported in part by a Service to Others grant from RTOERO District 20, specifically focuses on helping artists and arts educators learn how to include seniors and seniors with disabilities in their workshops. The module covers topics such as Disability and Aging, Designing and Facilitating Inclusive Arts Workshops, Determinants of Health, and The Value of Arts As We Age. Many of the artists that they work with come from a healthcare background and understand the importance of integrating arts into overall well-being for lifelong health. In addition to rolling out the training module, their project includes outreach initiatives to engage past MixAbilities trainees with the new material. As an added benefit, they will introduce up to 10 inclusive arts organizations from different regions in Canada to the senior’s module and our MixAbilities training program. By introducing their seniors’ module to this influential group, their approach will be shared and create an impact on seniors beyond the local Kingston area.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $34,540
Funding stream: Seniors’ health & wellness
Grantee/partners: Alzheimer Society of Ontario
Summary: People living with dementia often experience a lack of understanding and stigma related to their diagnosis. Tackling stigma requires awareness about dementia from all members of our community – this begins with our youth.
ASO will partner with the Murray Alzheimer Research and Education Program (MAREP), a Research Institute for Aging (RIA) program at the University of Waterloo to develop a Toolkit for Young Dementia Advocates. The Toolkit would be co-designed with people living with dementia, care partners and youth and include dementia education, understanding stigma and its impact, and practical ways that youth can provide support. Dissemination of the toolkit will include 2 virtual events (one for the general public and one for RTOERO members) as well as production of a podcast about the importance of youth advocacy and the development of the Toolkit. These activities will aim to increase dementia awareness, share information about the project and development process, and encourage youth, health care and community organizations to consider how they might use the Toolkit.
Date: 2021-2023
Grant amount: $83,039
Funding stream: Social engagement
Grantee/partners: Living well research team from the University of Alberta, Simon Fraser University and Memorial University
Summary: This project analyzed existing research on mental health support strategies and conducted a nationwide survey with older Canadians, including RTOERO members, about older Canadians’ strategies to reduce stress, fear, anxiety, and loneliness. Findings were summarized into a recipe book for RTOERO members and the general public that outlines what older adults can do to support their wellbeing, drawing in the advice from older Canadians involved in the study. The cookbook features anxiety-lessening strategies, sage advice and simple, healthy comfort food recipes. Recipes were designed by a research chef from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology. The Cooking up calm recipe book is now available.
Date: 2019-2023
Grant amount: $25,000
Funding stream: Social engagement
Grantee/partners: Family services of Peel, in collaboration with the Peel Elder Abuse Prevention Network (PEAPN), made up of 50 community support organizations across the region
Summary: This project aimed to reduce social isolation, improve system navigation, and engage immigrant seniors through the development of a Senior Connector Program in Peel region. Peel Senior Connector volunteers provided seniors, their families, and caregivers with information about resources and services available to them. It involved members of Peel region’s large immigrant communities where language is a barrier to accessing community services.
Date: 2020-2023
Grant amount: $25,000
Funding stream: social engagement
Grantee/partners: Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging (RIA) at the University of Waterloo
Summary: The goal of the project is to train frontline workers and community members to recognize isolated caregivers and isolated seniors, and to provide practical assistance and intervention strategies. This project created a community conversation guide to be used by residents and caregivers in Woolwich, ON. The guide is a practical resource for other neighbouring municipalities in Waterloo Region and beyond.
Date: 2018-2022
Grant amount: $50,000
Funding stream: Social engagement
Grantee/partners: National Institute on Ageing (NIA), Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University
Focus area: Policy Development
Summary: The aim of this project was to:
Learn more: Social isolation and loneliness: what’s the difference, and what can we do?
Date: 2018-2019
Grant amount: $50,000
Funding stream: Geriatrics research
Grantee/partners: Regional Geriatric Program of Toronto, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Summary: This project utilized the Senior Friendly 7 framework – delirium, mobility, nutrition, polypharmacy, pain, continence and social engagement -to create and disseminate tools that are tailored to meet the specific needs of Personal Support Workers (PSWs) who provide most of the frontline care to frail seniors.
Date: 2018-2019
Grant amount: $25,000
Funding stream: Geriatrics research
Grantee/partners: University of British Columbia
Summary: The project provided a novel approach aimed at helping healthy older adults with urinary incontinency (UI) who live in the community identify the problem early and get help.
Date: 2018-2019
Grant amount: $24,900
Funding stream: Social engagement
Grantee/partners: University of Western Ontario, in collaboration with Neighbourhood Watch London, Meals on Wheels London, London Middlesex Housing Corporation, Queen’s University
Summary: This project engaged residents of a London seniors’ housing building to define issues, plan, take action and evaluate outcomes. Key elements included participant photography, resident meetings and community idea sharing events.
Date: 2017-2019
Grant amount: $50,000
Funding stream: Social engagement
Grantee/partners: Hamilton Council on Aging, in collaboration with St. Joseph’s Home Care, Able Living Service, Thrive Group, Gilbrea Centre on Aging, Wellesley Urban Ministries, YWCA
Summary: The project aimed to measurably reduce the rates of seniors’ social isolation, where risk factors for isolation – such as living alone, disability, poor health, language barriers, poverty, and lack of access to services and supports – are most prevalent. The Social Participation Fund, which supported direct costs of seniors to participate in community programs and was paramount in successfully engaging isolated seniors.
Date: 2017-2018
Grant amount: $25,000
Funding stream: Geriatrics research
Grantee/partners: GERAS Centre for Aging Research, McMaster University
Summary: A stand-alone series of nine high-quality instructional exercise videos tailored to the varied needs of frail older adults with cognitive and physical impairments. The videos were developed and piloted with program members and YMCA instructors, as an accessible learning tool for dissemination of the GERAS DANCE program.
Date: 2017-2018
Grant amount: $25,000
Funding stream: Geriatrics research
Grantee/partners: Baycrest Health Centre, in collaboration with University of Toronto, Meighen Manor, Rekai Centres (Sherbourne Place & Wellesley Central Place)
Summary: This project investigated the benefits of using cognitive stimulation with elderly long-term care residents during friendly visits by volunteers. The project’s aim was to show that the use of cognitive stimulation exercises used in conversation with residents will lead to improved behaviours, mood and quality of life.
Date: 2017-2018
Grant amount: $25,000
Funding stream: Social engagement
Grantee/partners: Prince Edward County Community Care for Seniors, in collaboration with local first responders, letter carriers and libraries.
Summary: Working with multiple community partners, this project resulted in the coordination of efforts with organizations connecting with isolated seniors, to identify socially isolated seniors, promote and enhance the rural mail couriers alert program, and review the feasibility of re-establishing the Home Alone Program. Read more about the outcomes of the project.
Date: 2017-2018
Grant amount: $25,000
Funding stream: Social engagement
Grantee/partners: Ottawa Council on Aging, Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre, Ottawa Senior Pride Network, United Way
Summary: The project focused on diversity in Ottawa to capture the story of older adults on film and share with others to learn and benefit from their experiences.
Date: 2017-2018
Grant amount: $24,989
Funding stream: Geriatrics research
Grantee/partners: Ryerson University, in collaboration with the Association for Gerontology Education, McMaster University
Summary: The project aimed to build students’ capacity to support patients with dementia who display challenging behaviours with non-medical intervention. The project results were shared at the following conferences: 32nd Annual Conference of Alzheimer’s Disease International, Kyoto, Japan; 19th Biennial Conference, Canadian Gerontological Nursing Association, Ottawa; 46th Annual Scientific and Education Meeting of the Canadian Association on Gerontology, Winnipeg.
Date: 2017
Grant amount: $25,000
Funding stream: Social engagement
Grantee/partners: St. Joseph’s Health Centre, Everdale Environmental Learning Centre
Summary: The project aimed to reduce social isolation for seniors and youth by creating an urban farm that empowers all participants to work together to create positive community change and personal growth. Everdale Environmental Learning Centre, a farming incubator, partnered with St. Joseph’s Health Centre to identify seniors who were vulnerable due to isolation and engaged and empowered them to work with a group of students to plant, harvest and prepare meals together.
Date: 2016-2017
Grant amount: $24,655
Funding stream: Geriatrics research
Grantee/partners: Mount Sinai Hospital, University of Toronto
Summary: This mandatory orthogeriatrics rotation aimed to strengthen geriatric competencies among orthopedic trainees, leading to a new generation of orthopedic surgeons better equipped for the care of our growing older adult population.
Date: 2016-2017
Grant amount: $24,750
Funding stream: Geriatrics research
Grantee/partners: Northern Ontario School of Medicine, University of Guelph, University of Ottawa and Lakehead University
Summary: The objectives of the project were to promote and enhance awareness of the unique needs of older adults who identify as LGBTQ+ as they enter late stages of life, and to develop an interactive training and educational tool to assist healthcare providers to provide inclusive, safe and comprehensive care. The project incorporates both research and training and will benefit LGBTQ+ seniors across Ontario – in urban, rural and remote communities.
Date: Ongoing
Grant amount: $2,500,000
Funding stream: Geriatrics research
Grantee/partners: University of Toronto; Women’s College Hospital
Summary: An endowment to the University of Toronto to create the RTOERO Chair in Geriatric Medicine. The chair and their research group conduct ongoing research into medications for older adults and differences in aging experience between men and women, including gendered ageism. Learn more about the endowment.
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