Cheers to 40 years!

1978

Marylen Mann clearly remembers the day four decades ago when Father Lucius Cervantes, St. Louis commissioner of aging, took her and her friend Margie Wolcott May on a tour of the city’s senior centers. She spent a day in church basements visiting with older adults as they made crafts, played bingo and sat idly around the rooms. Although the centers were meeting important basic needs, Mann saw a world of potential going to waste. Why should the people in these centers, who had raised families and held productive jobs, have such limited opportunities as they aged? At the end of the day, Mann told Cervantes, “We can do better for older adults.”

• Receives grant for $8,000 from Mid-East Area Agency on aging to provide programs for its 48 senior centers in 4 counties throughout the St. Louis area

1980

• The U.S. Administration on Aging awarded a grant to fund the development of a handbook for creating and implementing older adult arts and humanities programs.

1982

• OASIS (Older Adult Service and Information Systems) was born through a two-year, $84,000 demonstration grant and launched at Famous Barr (of May Department Stores) in downtown St. Louis, Missouri with additional locations in Baltimore, Cleveland and Los Angeles shortly following.

1983–1984

• Mary Dee Schmidt joins Oasis as the first  Director of Curriculum. She trains older adult instructors on teaching strategies and helps plan curriculum to be used at Oasis.
• Centers open in Baltimore and Cleveland
• Oasis moves offices from University of Missouri-St. Louis to Washington University School of Medicine

1985

• The May Department Stores Company Foundation becomes a national sponsor of Oasis, providing space in its stores, and funding for up to 20% of the overall costs.
• Oasis and The May Department Stores Company receive the Distinguished Volunteer Service Award from the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

1988

• Classes are offered in 85 locations reaching more than 3,000 participants
• Oasis is recognized as a successful private sector model by the U.S. Surgeon General’s Conference on Health Promotion and Aging.

1989

• Founder Marylen Mann works with experts at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Webster University to develop a reading and language curriculum. She then went to superintendents and made her case. Oasis would provide well-trained volunteers who were reliable and consistent. They would work with children weekly, using a professionally developed curriculum. Tutors would help the children practice reading. Schools signed on, and the tutoring program was born.
• Anheuser-Busch serves as the first sponsor of the tutoring program.

1991

• Oasis is featured on the PBS Series Forever Young, hosted by C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General

1992

• Oasis continues to expand and is active in 20 cities serving 171,000 people nationwide.

1994

• The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) funds the Oasis program Reemerging Russia: Search for Identity, the first of four programs funded by NEH.

1998

• At the recommendation of sponsors, partners, and its own advisory council, the leadership at Oasis formed a separate organization, The Oasis Institute.
• St. Louis businessman Sanford Zimmerman served as the first Board President.
• Oasis continues to grow, now serving 340,000 members across the nation.

2000-2001

• Marcia Kerz joins Oasis as Chief Operating Officer. Kerz and Mann work together on a transition strategy so that Marcia can become President after Marylen Mann steps down.
• The U.S. Department of Commerce makes an investment in Oasis to support the Connections technology literacy training curriculum development, and AT&T shortly follows with an investment.
• Health programming continues to expand, and HealthStages is disseminated to all Oasis sites (includes physical activity, nutrition, mental health, disease management, memory, sensory health and overall health promotion).

2003

• Oasis receives nearly $1 million from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its Active for Life initiative. Through this funding, Oasis offered Active Living Every Day (a behavior change program facilitated by trained leaders who teach older adults skills to make physical activity part of their daily lives. Participants set goals, monitor their progress and reward themselves).
• Marcia Kerz becomes the second president of Oasis.

2005

• Founder Marylen Mann is recognized with an AARP Impact award, honoring 10 people each year who “improve our world”.
• President Marcia Kerz represents Oasis at the White House Conference on Aging.
• The AT&T Foundation awarded Oasis a $500,000 Excelerator grant to expand Connections technology literacy training locations and upgrade technology.

2006

• Oasis receives a planning grant from Atlantic Philanthropies grant to help navigate the future without funding from May Company/Macy’s.

2007

• Founder Marylen Mann presents to The Forum on Civil Society United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Ministerial Conference on Ageing in Leon, Spain to diplomats and ministers. Her presentation focused on meeting the needs of low-income older adults and how to partner with organizations through the community to serve this population.
• Oasis tutoring expands to 20 cities, through 109 districts and 902 schools, working with more than 250,000 children.
• Oasis begins implementing evidence-based health programs including Matter of Balance and Chronic Disease Self-Management.
• The National Council on Aging presents the Jack Ossofsky National Leadership Award to Oasis in recognizing its success at helping older people achieve vital aging.

2008

• Oasis receives funding from the Anthem Foundation to launch Active Generations, an after-school program where older adult volunteers work with children promotes healthy eating and physical activity. The program changes names to CATCH Healthy Habits. In 2010, Anthem increases funding to nearly $3 million to scale the program across the country.

2012

• Oasis receives funding from Bristol Meyers Squibb to implement Stanford University’s Diabetes Self-Management Program as part of a research study to see the workshop’s impact on participants’ A1c blood sugar levels.

2013

• The American Society on Aging recognizes Oasis with The Gloria Cavanaugh Award for Excellence in Training and Education.
• Oasis is named to the S&I 100, a national index of 100 High Impact Not-for-Profits with proof of results and high potential for expansion.

2014

• Oasis Tutoring receives first AmeriCorps Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) grant for three counties in the St. Louis area allowing for more support and funding to districts partnering with Oasis. RSVP continues to support Oasis to date, allowing for expansion into Illinois and rural Missouri.

2015

• Oasis receives its first Administration for Community Living Falls Prevention grant to implement Matter of Balance and Tai Chi for Arthritis for Fall Prevention across Missouri and a grant from Missouri Foundation for Health to explore creating a network of falls prevention providers in St. Louis.

2017

• Oasis welcomes Paul Weiss, the organization’s third President.
• The Oasis Intergenerational Tutoring program is recognized by Generations United as a Program of Distinction for implementing best practices in intergenerational work.

2018

• St. Louis Oasis expands local locations outside of the central corridor to reach older adults in seven new program sites throughout the metro area.

2019

• The Oasis Institute receives a five-year cooperative agreement from the U.S. Administration for Community Living/Administration on Aging (ACL/AoA) to implement the National Volunteer Care Corps. This program, now called Community Care Corps,is administered by Oasis in cooperation with Caregiver Action Network and USAging. The Community Care Corps grants funds to nonprofits across the U.S. that fosters innovative local models in which volunteers provide nonmedical assistance to family caregivers, older adults, or adults with disabilities in order to maintain their independence. $7.6 million has been funded over the past two years.