The Pioneer Network will come together in Philadelphia for its 6th national conference one week from today! It promises to be a high involvement, thought provoking and action-oriented few days. And there's still time to register if you haven't already! We have leaders from nearly all state coalitions convening for a special pre-conference on coalition development and we're all very excited about taking the ideas and energy generated in Philadelphia back to our communities.

One thing that all attendees will be taking back to our home communities is our Declaration of Interdependence -- a document forged over the last few months by a long list of diverse individuals involved in creating a new culture of aging.

The Declaration of Interdependence (opens as a .PDF) will be read aloud and discussed during the first plenary and in our highly interactive community-building "Interdependence in Action" breakout sessions following that plenary Thursday morning. But the spirit of creating the document -- the spirit of this whole movement -- has always been one of openness. So in that spirit, we are sharing the Declaration of Interdependence in advance of the conference with the hope that individuals will take a moment during the next week to share it with the elders in their community and their colleagues who may or may not be able to attend. We invite folks to hold a community meeting or a learning circle in your setting and to ask elders and others to share their thoughts about what it means to live and work interdependently.

The Declaration of Interdependence is only a starting point. For it to have any real meaning we must find creative ways to communicate and work together to put it into action. Please share your thoughts as a comment below.