Amy Andonian, guest contributor to Caring.com
Amy Andonian currently serves as the Site Director in Palo Alto, California for the Institute on Aging (IOA), a community-based, non-profit organization that touches the lives of thousands of older adults in San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties.
Prior to joining IOA, Amy worked for six years as the Program Director of Caregiver Services for Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County in San Jose, California. She has extensive knowledge and expertise in the areas of adult day care, home care, family caregiving, dementia care, non-profit program development and management, grant-writing, and social enterprise. Amy is an active member of the Aging Services Collaborative of Santa Clara County (ASC), serving as the co-chair of the ASC's Caregiver Support Team.
Amy received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Human Biology with concentrations in Public Health and Gerontology from Stanford University. In addition, she is a graduate of Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business's California Program for Entrepreneurship, Class of 2012.
Why I Care
"When I first started college at Stanford over a decade ago, I planned to pursue a career in medicine, specifically in pediatrics. A year later, however, I found myself traveling down a completely different path after I took a fascinating class called "Women and Aging" with Dr. Carol Hutner Winograd, a geriatrician and emerita professor of Medicine at Stanford. This class made me realize that with the pending "Silver Tsunami" and projected explosive growth of the Baby Boomer population, there would need to be a strong cadre of highly trained and dedicated young professionals willing to devote their lives and careers to working with the elderly, providing them with the care and resources needed to "age in place" with grace and dignity. Today, I am pursuing a fascinating and deeply fulfilling career in the non-profit sector, working with diverse older adults and families in the community. I am happy to have discovered my life's vocation, and I know it will grow even stronger as I, myself, continue to age."