In traditional societies, a “life calling” occurs “at the place where one’s great passion and gifts meet the world’s great need.” If that’s true, Katrina Polk surely has a calling to care for older adults. She’s been doing it since she was four-years-old.

On February 20, Dr. Katt (as she is known) will be taking on a new challenge as the inaugural Executive Director of the DC Villages Collaborative. DCVC is a recently launched project that brings together the strengths and reach of all thirteen Villages in DC in order to increase our efficiency and effectiveness, serve even more older adults, and expand into currently underserved neighborhoods.

Of course, Dr Katt’s qualifications for this position include impressive professional and academic credentials and decades of work in the public and private sector focused on serving older adults. But as she says, “I am more than academic rigor and business innovation. I am a proud caregiver and grandmother!” I had the privilege of spending a couple of hours chatting with Dr. Katt about where she comes from, where she learned to care for elderly adults, and how she formed her broad understanding of the aging process.

Dr. Katt was born into a large, multigenerational family in Philadelphia. Her great-great- grandmother, Lulu (Waiters) Brown, moved there from South Carolina with other family members during the Great Migration in the 1920s. Brown’s grandparents had been enslaved in Trinidad, and her mother was sold as a child to a sugar cane plantation in South Carolina. 

Katt’s father was a military specialist for the Navy and his work often took him away from home. Katt’s mother also traveled often, so she and her brothers were cared for by their great-great-grandmother. “Granny” was in her 80’s when Katt was a young child, and her vigor and purpose at this advanced age made a lasting impression on young Katt. Through a faith-based initiative, Granny prepared neighbors’ houses for their return from the hospital, many of whom were older adults still younger than she was. Four-year-old Katt came along to help clean and make sure the houses were safe and welcoming. Thus, Katt started learning about the satisfactions of public service and elder care early in her life.

In grade school, Katt reached out to the elderly in her community on her own, in personal and practical ways. Before the days of pill organizers, she helped older folks in her neighborhood organize their medications using dixie cups that she labeled. She brought her homework to visits with aging Black women who couldn’t read and taught them to read using her spelling words. Katt often arrived home from school much later than expected, to her parents’ dismay, after helping elderly folks cross the street or carrying home their groceries.

When Katt grew up and had her own family, her great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother helped care for her children, so she knows firsthand the blessings of multigenerational family care. She now spends as much time as she can with her own five grandchildren, along with providing part time caregiving for her 92-year-old grandmother. Hers is a family that respects and values its elders and provides for and cares for them. They are the foundation for her work in aging services and her commitment to ensuring that our older adult neighbors live in supportive communities where they are valued and can age with dignity.

Dr. Katt values the unique character and neighborhoods of each of the thirteen Villages in Washington, DC, and she looks forward to advocating for sustainable funding, expanding our reach, and promoting intergenerational programming. She has a broad understanding of the aging process, which, she’s convinced, begins much earlier in life than is traditionally thought. From mid-life on, caring for others, maintaining healthy eating and exercise habits, seeking social connections and avocations that can sustain us into old age, are excellent preparations for our elder years.

A “life calling” is far more than a “job.” To be called to a particular act of service involves the whole person: her physical vigor, her mental acuity, her creativity, her emotional investment, her courage and persistence. In Dr. Katt, we are lucky to have far more than a highly competent professional; we have a great heart as well as a great mind committed to advancing the Village model.