Most days at WellWise begin the same way they have for fifty years.
The phones start ringing. A daughter calls because her father isn’t eating. A husband calls because the doctor used a word he didn’t recognize. A neighbor calls because the woman across the street hasn’t picked up her mail in three days.
We answer, we listen, and together, we figure out what comes next. That’s the rhythm of our work. And this May, the federal government came to see it.
Mary Lazare, Principal Deputy Administrator of the Administration for Community Living (ACL) and Assistant Secretary for Aging, chose WellWise as one of only three sites in the country to visit during her national Older Americans Month tour.
Where the Day Actually Started
The Lenawee Department on Aging Central Kitchen in Adrian doesn’t look like much from the outside. Step inside on a weekday morning, though, and you’ll find something extraordinary.
It’s a partnership between the county Department on Aging and the Maurice Spear Juvenile Justice Campus that produces 1,200 meals a day. Meals that go out to seven senior centers, to Daybreak Adult Day Services, to home-delivered meal clients across the county, and to the young people at the Campus itself.
Two missions, one kitchen, a lot of hot lunches.
It’s the kind of partnership that takes years of trust to build. It’s also the kind of partnership that doesn’t always make it into a federal report, which is exactly why we wanted Mary Lazare to see it.
From there, the day moved into homes.
- A home-delivered meal route in Addison, the kind of stop where the volunteer at the door is sometimes the only face a person sees all day.
- An in-home personal care visit, where one of our care professionals sat at a kitchen table with a longtime client.
- An Enhance Fitness class at the WellWise headquarters in Brooklyn, where older adults gather several times a week to build the strength and balance that help them stay independent.
By the time we returned to our offices on Chicago Street, the picture was already coming together for Mary Lazare. Aging services aren’t a single program or a single front door. They’re a network of relationships between agencies, between caregivers and clients, between staff who answer the phone and the people who call, hoping someone will pick up.
Behind Every Call, a Person
At our Brooklyn headquarters, the conversation moved to programs that touch tens of thousands of lives across our three counties each year:
- Information & Referral – Trained specialists answer more than 20,000 calls annually. A live person picks up every time. For someone in crisis, like a daughter trying to figure out the next steps for her mother or a husband who just received a diagnosis, that voice on the other end of the line is often the first moment of relief.
- Care Management – Including the MI Choice Medicaid Waiver and our Tiered Care model, care management extends coordinated, in-home support to significantly more older adults than traditional care management alone. Tiered Care lets us meet people where they are, sometimes with a weekly check-in call, sometimes with full nurse oversight, always with the goal of supporting independence before a crisis forces a harder decision.
- Community Transition Services – Supports older adults leaving the hospital. Our team helps people understand discharge instructions, follow up with their doctors, and get safely home, which reduces hospital readmissions and helps recovery happen in the place people most want to be.
- Assistive Technology (AT) – a program staffed by Michigan’s only full-time AAA Assistive Technology specialist. From a built-up handle on a pencil to voice-controlled home devices, AT is about removing barriers between people and the things they want to do.
These programs aren’t separate islands. They’re how a person stays in their home. How someone leaving the hospital doesn’t end up back there in two weeks. How a caregiver finally sleeps through the night. And every one of them depends on a team that shows up, day after day, year after year, with care.
More Than a Theme
May is Older Americans Month. The 2026 theme, Champion Your Health, focuses on prevention, wellness, and the daily decisions that shape how we age. It’s a theme that aligns with everything we believe at WellWise: that the best aging services are the ones that reach people before a crisis, not after.
Our national association, USAging, is using the month to highlight how local Area Agencies on Aging help older adults “Live Long, Stay Strong” by connecting them to nutrition, transportation, falls prevention, caregiver support, and the everyday services that make independence possible.
And on May 13, just days after the site visit, Area Agencies on Aging from across Michigan will gather at the State Capitol in Lansing for Older Michiganians Day. It’s a chance to advocate together for the programs and funding that make work like ours possible, and to remind state leaders that the people behind the policies are real older adults, real caregivers, and real communities counting on the support.
What Stays After the Visit Ends
We’re proud of the work that brought a federal visit to our doors this month. But we’re prouder of the work that happens here every day, with no cameras and no agendas. Our team is showing up for the older adults, families, and caregivers who trust us.
If that’s you—if you’re caring for someone you love, navigating a new diagnosis, or just trying to figure out what comes next—call us at (517) 592-1974, or visit wellwiseservices.org. A live person will answer. And we’ll figure out the next step together.
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(517) 592-1974 
(517) 592-1975 