News

Age Friendly Seattle Team on Board

Photo of Lenny Orlov, Sarah Demas, and Brent Butler, three of the four Age Friendly Seattle team members. Not pictured is Fahima Mohamed.

Help us welcome the Age Friendly Seattle team, now on board at the Seattle Human Services Department’s Aging and Disability Services division. As you may know, the City of Seattle launched Age Friendly Seattle in 2017 with passage of a joint resolution from the Mayor and Seattle City Council. The goal? Make Seattle a great place to grow up AND grow old!

Brent A. Butler (at right in the photo at top) will serve as the policy lead in implementing the Age Friendly Seattle Action Plan. He brings years of experience in nongovernmental organizations, startups, and government. Brent is a certified floodplain manager (CFM) and accredited planner (AICP) who has managed planning and housing for municipalities in Washington and California. He is passionate about improving community health metrics through innovations in housing, transportation, and broad-based partnerships, with a focus on data driven system change for people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. Brent is skilled in community organizing to create change in distressed and marginalized communities, having started along this path in Seattle’s First Hill neighborhood in the 1990s.

Lenny Orlov (at left in the photo at top) and Sarah Demas serve as Age Friendly Seattle coordinators. They will work internally and with the community to help all become more age-, ability-, and dementia-friendly, representing the department and division at community events, coordinating age-friendly activities, supporting task force meetings and workgroups, and helping to develop age-friendly media, reports, and training materials. Sarah and Lenny bring excellent outreach, education, and organizational skills to our agency.

Lenny has many years of experience promoting healthy aging and organizing community forums. He recently worked with Jewish Family Service and is passionate about immigrant rights, racial equity, and gender justice.

Sarah has worked in the aging field for many years—most recently Seattle Parks and Recreation’s Lifelong Recreation Program. She is also a leader in equity and inclusion and an active organizing member of the Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites.

Not pictured above is Fahima Mohamed, who will start work with Age Friendly Seattle this month. Fahima currently works as a planner in the Seattle Human Services Youth and Family Empowerment division. As a management systems analyst, she will support the Age Friendly Seattle team and Aging and Disability Services leadership in making data-driven decisions.

By the way, Irene Stewart served as Age Friendly Seattle project manager this past year, getting the initiative up and running and developing the Age Friendly Seattle Action Plan for 2018–2021. Irene now serves as communications lead for all Aging and Disability Services programs, including Age Friendly Seattle, and is the editor of this e-zine. She’ll be an integral part of every ADS team!

Among recent AgeWise articles about Age Friendly Seattle, please take the time to read:

For more information about Age Friendly Seattle, e-mail agefriendly@seattle.gov or visit www.seattle.gov/agefriendly. You can also follow Age Friendly Seattle on Facebook and Twitter.


Contributor Cathy Knight directs Aging and Disability Services (ADS). ADS is a division of the Seattle Human Services Department, designated as the Area Agency on Aging for Seattle-King County. For more information about the agency’s interest in age-friendly communities, visit www.agingkingcounty.org/what-we-do/age-friendly-communities.

This article originally appeared in the May 2018 issue of AgeWise King County (click here).