Latest news with #JoeCoughlin
Yahoo
07-08-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The caregiving crisis: An overlooked $600 billion problem in retirement planning
Listen and subscribe to Decoding Retirement on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. A perfect storm in American retirement planning is brewing. As the population rapidly ages, unpaid family caregivers are already providing 20 to 25 hours per week caring for older loved ones — a hidden burden that MIT AgeLab director Joe Coughlin calls a '$600 billion problem.' In a recent episode of the Decoding Retirement podcast, Coughlin discussed how caregiving is consuming more time and money than most families anticipate. Highlighting the need, 1 in 4 families spends the equivalent of a part‑time job caring for an older adult, he said, and these hours don't include caring for children or family members with disabilities. While emerging technologies — from AI-powered smart homes to household robots — promise to reshape how Americans age, families today face immediate emotional, financial, and logistical pressures. 'Caregiving is ... an issue in the shadows that is right now a personal problem but should become a public issue,' Coughlin said. This embedded content is not available in your region. The 'leaky pipe' effect Retirement planning is often treated as a purely financial exercise, but Coughlin warns that approach may be too narrow. While financial resources are essential, they are only half the equation. 'Financial security is just part of it,' Coughlin said. 'You also need to know who you trust to walk into your mother's home when she's 80‑something and care for her when you can't be there.' When asked who will provide care, most adults assume their spouse or partner will become their primary caregiver, followed by an adult child, usually a daughter, Coughlin said. But these caregiving arrangements can put emotional, physical, and financial strain on families. Spouses will eventually need their own care. Adult children may live far away or juggle their own careers and families. And hands‑on support, such as adult day programs and home health aides, is often needed for tasks big and small, from administering medication to cooking meals or taking out the trash. Furthermore, caregiving rarely begins with a single event; it creeps into family life slowly, often long before families feel prepared. This can have financial ramifications too. Research shows financial decline often begins before a dementia diagnosis due to missed bills, unwise spending, or vulnerability to scams. One 2023 study found that families lost half their wealth in the eight years before a dementia diagnosis. Coughlin calls this the 'leaky pipe' effect. 'Years before the diagnosis of dementia, bad decisions start to happen ... and we see that money leak out of that euphemistic pipeline,' Coughlin said. 'This is profoundly emotional. When do you have the courage and the opportunity to tell a spouse or a parent, 'Dad, you're not quite OK, and I need to step in?'" Read more: How to protect aging parents from banking scams Transportation: The overlooked essential Coughlin also highlighted transportation as one of the most overlooked aspects of retirement — something many people take for granted until it becomes an issue. He noted that 70% of Americans over 50 live in suburban or rural areas where public transit is either nonexistent or too difficult to use. Meanwhile, the top three expenses for couples over 65 remain the same: housing first, transportation second, and healthcare third. 'We also forget that transportation is not just about getting you where you need to be,' Coughlin said. 'It is a vital part of quality of life. It's about getting to the things you want, the things that make you smile.' Even if you get your needs taken care of — going to the doctor's office or getting food delivered — what about the small joys? Coughlin illustrated the point with a simple story. 'Will you get an ice cream cone?' he asked. 'Will you get the thing on a hot summer night that makes you smile, that you don't need? You don't want to bother your adult daughter or a neighbor that you don't talk to on a regular basis saying, 'Hey, will you take me out to Dairy Queen for a soft serve?' That's not going to happen. But those little things are the things that make quality of life in older adulthood possible.' 'Transportation, frankly, is one of the great missing links to a quality retirement plan — and frankly, in many of our communities,' he added. So what's the actionable advice for people who may soon face the reality of giving up driving? Coughlin advised starting with a location assessment and exploring any public transit options you might have ignored. 'If you've not used the local subway or bus system — I know it's difficult to say that if you haven't used it in 40 years — give it a go,' Coughlin said. Experiment with home delivery services, from food and groceries to telemedicine, to help bridge transportation gaps. Coughlin also pointed to ridesharing services as a key tool for maintaining mobility. 'As we found during COVID, ridesharing services are now ubiquitous,' he said. 'They're no longer just in the city or near suburbs — they're out, frankly, where I live, out in the middle of nowhere. If you haven't tried one of those services, try them, try them often. That way it becomes a transition, and not hitting a wall when driving is no longer either comfortable or capable.' He emphasized that the ability to drive safely is about health and well-being, not just age. Still, he urged older adults to plan ahead for the day when driving may no longer be comfortable or possible. Read more: Retirement planning: A step-by-step guide The role of AI and robots in caregiving Coughlin also addressed how evolving technology, smart homes, and even robots are poised to help tackle some of the nation's toughest caregiving challenges. Artificial intelligence "is definitely going to be ubiquitous in your retirement," Coughlin said, explaining that the technology may become 'seamless' in the home — similar to the kind of technology Arthur C. Clarke famously described as 'indistinguishable from magic.' In practice, AI may handle small but critical tasks, such as reminding retirees to take medications and monitoring sleep patterns. More importantly, it could give caregivers — both family members and professionals — the ability to intervene before problems become emergencies. Rather than waiting for a home alert to declare, 'Help, he's fallen, he can't get up,' AI may be able to serve as an early‑warning system, acting as a 'caregiver's aid' and what Coughlin called 'augmented intelligence to age well.' 'It'll enable your caregiver — formal and family — to be able to intervene, to be proactive before there's an issue, such as your gait has changed, your walk is a little different, you're likely to fall,' he said. Coughlin said robots will likely be part of this ecosystem too. Companies are already envisioning robots capable of folding laundry, cleaning your house, or even performing a social function by talking to you or playing a game with you. Part of his optimism about embracing technology comes from the reality of the coming 'care gap.' With families busier, smaller, or living farther apart, technology will become essential to support aging at home. 'If we want to stay in the homes we love — so‑called aging in place, where our mortgage and our memories are — technology is going to be a helping hand to make that happen,' he said. However, he added one practical caveat for retirees: This tech support will come with a price tag. 'We should start preparing for that being a new cost in retirement,' he said. 'We've never thought about it before, but suddenly start thinking of ... your cell service, your speakers, your smart devices, and all the subscriptions you signed up for, for your refrigerator to talk to your toaster, to talk to your car, to have the food delivered. That's an invisible thing on your credit card that now needs a line item in your retirement plan.'Got questions about retirement? Email Robert Powell at yfpodcast@ and we'll do our best to answer it in a future episode of Decoding Retirement. Each Tuesday, retirement expert and financial educator Robert Powell gives you the tools to plan for your future on Decoding Retirement. You can find more episodes on our video hub or watch on your preferred streaming service. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
05-08-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Caregiving is the $600 billion crisis hiding in plain sight
With a rapidly aging workforce, budgeting time and money for caregiving has become even more crucial for the average American. On this episode of Decoding Retirement, host Robert "Bob" Powell speaks with MIT AgeLab director Joe Coughlin, who shares his unique perspective on the advancements and challenges that await retirees. Coughlin also discusses the impact of unpaid caregiving on family finances, maintaining cash flow after retirement, and the financial benefits of residing in livable communities. Yahoo Finance's Decoding Retirement is hosted by Robert Powell. Find more episodes of Decoding Retirement at Because there is that coming care gap, whether our families are too busy or living at a distance, we're going to need that assistance. Technology is going to be a helping hand to make that happen. So while there are all kinds of science fiction things to creep us out, I am very optimistic that technology is going to enable us to live longer, better, healthier lives. The world is rapidly aging and given that the effects on caregiving, on transportation, on housing, on your retirement plan, they're changing rapidly as well. And here to talk with me about that is Doctor Joe Coughlin, he's the director of the MIT AIDS lab. Joe, welcome. Hey, it's great to be here, Bob. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure. So, so two things, Joe. Our goal with with decoding retirement is to make this a person's first and last stop in their search for knowledge about retirement planning. So thank you for being here because you're going to help us accomplish that, that mission. Appreciate it. You're always a delight to work with and you know more than even most of the experts, so great totalk to you. Well, no one knows as much as you, and I want to start here, um, with caregiving and well-being. Um, it has been described at times as a $600 billion problem, especially when you think about all the unpaid caregivers in this country. Uh, you study caregiving, uh, lots to talk about there, right? Yep, no, absolutely. I mean, I want you to imagine this, Bob, in the United States or North America alone, 1 in 4 American families is providing upwards of 20 to 25 hours per week to care for an older loved one. That doesn't count children or people with special needs. So caregiving is, shall we say, a, a in the shadows, that is a right now a personal problem, but should become a public issue. what advice do you have for either people who are caregivers or perhaps even recipients of care? No, absolutely, you know, this is one of the things that retirement planning has, I don't wanna say it's completely dropped the ball, but it has defined it profoundly as only a financial if you are planning for your own retirement uh individually or as a couple, yes, absolutely, you're gonna need the financial wherewithal, the financial security to provide the care you need, even if your loved one is going to provide it. You know, the number one caregiver is typically your spouse, and sadly for you and I are more likely, Bob, sadly for our wives, it is more likely the wife caring for the husband. But after her is the adult so while both those caregivers, the, the spouse and the adult daughter would certainly appreciate and need a sort of robust financial uh plan and and and uh bank account, that's only part of it. In fact, I would even suggest it's only 50% of have to start planning out who's going to be providing the hands-on care. More likely than not, your spouse is going to need her own care, and your adult daughter, typically, even if you have adult sons, are going to be busy or distant or whatever it might be. So how are you?Going to fill in the gaps, everything from adult daycare to healthcare to home care, who's gonna do the little things? Perhaps as it advances to get you dressed to have feed, uh, you know, of food on the table or frankly, just to take out the trash on the simple yeah, financial security is part of it, but identifying, here's a scenario, Bob, identifying the person or service that you would trust to go into your mother's home when you're not there. Mom is 80 something years old, she's not cognitively as sharp as she once was. Physically may not be as well. Who do you trust to go in there to care for her?So it's not just a matter of having a bank account, it's a matter for having the actual service or the face that you would trust to do that. Yeah, um, you, you mentioned, uh, this, uh, notion of it's not a financial matter, but you've written recently, I think that families lose half their wealth in the eight years before a dementia diagnosis. Uh, obviously, so now it's twofold, right? It is financial and all the things that you just mentioned. Yeah, no, uh, some really good work done by my colleagues at the MIT Asia Lab, Luo Quinto, and folks at the AARP, Doctor Julie Miller, uh, came up with this metaphor of the leaky pipe, and years before the diagnosis of dementia, bad happen. Uh, you know, maybe bills are not paid, maybe, uh, crazy things are purchased, if you will, that are well without outside the budget. Sadly, maybe we become more susceptible to scams and seeing that money leak out, shall we say of that euphemistic so as we start to see caregiving as an issue, it starts far earlier than than we think. And it's not just a matter of like, oh, there's an issue, let's intervene. This is profoundly emotional. When do you have the, the, the courage and the opportunity to tell a spouse or a parent that, Dad, you're not quite OK, I need to step know, we fought for our independence as teenagers. We fight even more, shall we say, passionately as we are older. And so that's, it's a very hard spot where families find themselves in the crosshairs of emotional, physical, and financial stress. Yeah, I, I'm often fond of saying that as we age, right, our parents become our children and, and the children become the parents and uh someone needs to take charge of some of these decisions and, and maybe, uh,And, and maybe the places to do that in a family meeting perhaps. Yeah,in family meetings, but I have to tell you, Bob, I don't wanna uh get our, our viewers depressed, but I, I stumbled on some data that that really did depress estimates suggest that one quarter of families out there are estranged from their adult children. So as we talk about caregiving, one of the things that we've done at the labs, we've done research on, uh, who do you think is gonna take care of you? And without question, it's, well, my partner, my spouse, or my adult children. Well, by the way, only of the vast majority who said are going to care for them. Less than 30% actually had the conversation that that person knows they're going to care for them. But imagine where 1 in 4 or maybe even a little bit more than 1 in 4 are estranged, not talking, living at a distance from their loved ones. That means that we have a coming care gap in the United States that is going to make the current issue look, shall we say, like the norm, but the will be not just financial, it will be a profound public problem as well. Joe, I, I, I wanna, uh, let you know that my wife used to ask me how my day was, and she stopped doing that because I would quote something depressing news like you just said to us. And she said, I've had invitedto parties, right? I've had it with your depressing news. Um, talk a little bit about as we think about the future of homes and smart homes and perhaps social robots. Are, are we, are we on the verge of technology helping solve some of the problems here? You know, absolutely. My, my colleague Dr. Chai Wu Lee leads a whole program at the Asia Lab called Home Logistics or Home as Service. What you imagine now your home no longer simply a place to keep the rain off or a place to live, but frankly a platform of services. We found during COVID that all those little services that they crazy kids, the Gen Z younger millennials were doing life by app, became effectively a virtual assisted living for rides, for food delivery, telemedicine, pharma delivery, and the like. So with respect to robots and other technologies, so the so-called internet of things where shall we say,Everything begins to watch and everything begins to talk to itself. Yes, they are already here in small amounts. I would ask everyone listening to ask yourself how many strangers are in your house right now? I, you know, as you mentioned certain names, speakers may light up or that constant familiar face that knocks on your door and drops off a these services are already evolving, and I would suggest to you, Bob, that this is a new cost in retirement that no one is thinking about. It's not in anyone's line item, but yet it is part of the run rate of you mentioned robots, which is one of my favorite topics, because these technologies are shall we say, getting between cool and creepy. So yes, there will be robots out there that will be, uh, keeping you abreast of your favorite recipe, your favorite program, but also reminding you of your medication. Also maybe reminding you that in my case, Joe, you know, put the ice cream away, you might want to try a watermelon dessert also the social robots, some that will engage you in a game or to talk and can tell by the timbre of your voice. Are you well? Are you happy enough?But the part that's going to be coming soon, and I guess I would say soon is in a decade, maybe even less by some estimates, are going to be robots that actually do work around the house. So whether it's the, you know, the usual names like Figu or Tesla and others that are out there, they're envisioning robots probably for the cost of a medium sized car, medium sized will fold the laundry, clean the house, may even down the road be able to prepare your meal. And when I say it's the price of a car, I'm sure a lot of people are shuddering going, where the heck am I gonna get that amount of money? Well, think about the following. When people retire, one of the most, shall we say, popular retirement gifts, it's not just the the new car? I could see in about a decade or so people go, well, I got the car and now I've got the robot, or frankly, I think a lot of this will be by subscription. You may not own any of it, but you'll be paying on a monthly rate, which also has profound implications for your cash flow inretirement. Yeah. So, Joe, speaking of technology in the home, uh, we can't avoid talking about AI, artificial intelligence. Yeah, no, AI these days is the topic everywhere and about everything. It is definitely going to be ubiquitous in your retirement. Now we were talking about technology in the home, so AI is going to be, shall we say, seamless and as Arthur C. Clarke said, the best technology is that which is invisible and seemingly works like magic. Well, AI will be there to remind you of your meds. It'll be there to monitor. Are you sleeping late because you were out partying the night before, or you're not?Sleeping very well. Are you having your coffee later than usual? It'll enable your caregiver and a formal and family, if you will, to be able to intervene, to be proactive before there's an issue such as your gait has changed, your walk is a little different, you're likely to fall rather than having a house that says, oh my gosh, help, he's falling, he can't get once you're on the floor, we frankly have other issues. So AI is gonna be there to, shall we say, be a, a caregiver's aide, and augmented intelligence to age well. And of course, robots, when we talk about robots, most people think about the the physical nature of robots, but behind that physical thing of whatever they're doing is AI. Yeah. Uh, Joe, I, it, it would probably fair to say that you don't fear the future of technology. Uh, should average people, us mere mortals, fear this notion of a robot telling us to take our meds and whatnot, or should we relish this opportunity? I, I, I think, I think we should relish it on a number of fronts. One,Technology moves quickly for a few, but by the time it gets to most of us, many of the bugs have gotten out. Most of the time it's gotten more affordable, not always affordable, but more affordable. But the other issue is is that because there is that coming care gap, whetherOur families are too busy or living at a distance, we're going to need that assistance. If we want to stay in the homes where we that we love, you know, so-called the aging in place where our marriage, our mortgage and our memories are, technology is gonna be a helping hand to make that while there are all kinds of science fiction things to creep us out, I am very optimistic that technology is going to enable us to live longer, better, healthier lives. One thing, Bob, as a footnote though, we should start preparing for that being a new cost in we've never thought about it before, but suddenly start thinking of your subscriptions, your cell service, your speakers, your smart devices, and all the subscriptions you've signed up for for your refrigerator to talk to your toaster, to talk to your car, to have the food delivered. That's an invisible thing on your credit card that now needs a line item in your retirement plan. we're gonna take a short break and when we come back, we'll talk more about retirement planning, longevity planning, and transportation and livable communities. Don't go back to Decoding Retirement. I'm talking to Doctor Joe Coughlin. He's the director of the MIT AIDS lab and one of my favorite people in the world, because among other things, Joe, you get to see the future in ways that most people don't, so it's always a pleasure to talk to you about what we can expect and what we should be doing, you spend a lot of time thinking about transportation. I've had an opportunity to go to the MIT AI lab and drive Miss Daisy, although poorly, I must admit, I think I had a number of, uh, animated children as their balls went into the road. But, uh, transportation is a big issue. I, I think I might have mentioned in the past that I'm the, I'm the chair of our local senior center and, uh, by golly, it is, I think our number one issue is getting people to medical appointments or hairdressers or the grocery store and whatnot. So,What can we expect in the future as it pertains to transportation? Now, transportation, as you know, Bob, is one of my favorite topics. In fact, it is the very topic that got me into aging and retirement in the first place. I, uh, became a, shall we say, a sex in older drivers, an issue, uh, trapped somewhere between humor and horror in many transportation is one of those overlooked issues that people simply take for granted. Let's give us some context. Do you know that 70% of Americans over the age of 50 live either in suburban or rural areas where alternatives to driving either do not exist or they're just too difficult to use?Here's another little factory that few people think about, and by the way, even financial advisors get this wrong. What are the top three costs for a couple over 65? And immediately people yell out healthcare and housing. Well, they're not incorrect, but they are incomplete. Number 1 cost is housing, number 3 cost is health care, number 2 is so one of the things we also forget is that transportation is not just about getting you where you need to be, it is a vital part of quality of life. It's about getting to the things you want, the things that make you smile. You will get to the doctor's office. You will somehow get food delivered or you will get to the grocery as you know, Bob, one of my favorite uh uh stories I like to tell us, will you get an ice cream cone? Will you get the thing on a hot summer night that makes you smile that you don't need, you don't want to bother your adult daughter or a neighbor that you don't talk to on a regular basis, saying, hey, will you take me out to Dairy Queen for a saucer? That's not going to happen. But those little things are the things that make quality of life in older adulthood possible and so is one of the great missing links to a quality retirement plan and frankly in many of our communities. Yeah. Uh, so I want to turn my attention to, uh, my favorite topic, retirement and longevity planning, and obviously you spend as much time thinking about this as the other topics, so, uh, give us the brain dump. Well, I, I, I, this is gonna sound a lot to the audience like a word game, but I, I, I think if you think about it, you realize that it is not. There are many examples of very wealthy people out there who have not done very well in retirement. That is, they've not done very well in terms of caregiving or social connection or their, their health uh uh did not fare very they had a really strong bank account. What I'd like people to start thinking about is not simply retirement planning, but retirement preparation. So absolutely maintain that dedication and that discipline, if you will, to saving enough for financial security and advisors, employers and whatnot can help you with what that secret number might the difference between planning and preparing to make it always relate, in my case, Bob, as you know, always back to food, is kind of like grow is writing a shopping list. A shopping list is a until that food is in my cart, in my cabinet, or frankly on the stove, I'm not eating. So I would ask people to start connecting the money to what they're going to need. So if it's transportation, have you identified what those alternatives are going to be, who they're going, where those services are going to be, and how much they're going to cost? If you think about caregiving, having a long-term care plan or self annuitizing long term care makes infinite now that you got the checkbook, who's going to do it? What kind of services will you need? Do you even know what a geriatric care manager is to be able to integrate those things together to make it possible? So the difference between planning is the shopping list and having a checkbook. The preparation is actually having everything ready at the time of need, long before you need it. in retirement, Joe, and I think you've written recently about this topic about how to pivot when your retirement doesn't go as planned as as you've prepared for it. What, what do folks need to do? I mean, I look at retirement and I thinkUm, it's sort of like flying a plane, right? You just don't go from one point to another without making adjustments along the way. So whether it's an adjustment because of something that happened that was unplanned or something that happened that, uh, you just need to make adjustments for, but it's the unplanned things, the unexpected things that people really needed to prepare themselves for, right? Like yesterday won't be the same as tomorrow, uh, per se, right?Or tomorrow won't be the same as yesterday. You know, what's really funny, Bob, is if you think about the whole area of people that are entering it soon or already in there are frankly uh uh on a new frontier of retirement. Our parents, our grandparents, uh, not only had different financial strategies either uh because they, you know, they had uh defined benefits or or the like, frankly, they didn't live as long either. So this next generation is going to be living a much longer period with shall we say, relatively more uncertainty in that time that they're living, they're gonna have many different changes. We have, we have, uh, marketed a falsehood that retirement is somewhere between cruises and crutches. But in between, there's going to be so much more. There will be health events, there will be births of grandchildren. They'll be the desire and the demand to have to move. I would suggest that there will be more changes than all the previous life stages before challenge will be is that you may not be physically, emotionally, or maybe even cognitively uh is capable to, shall we say, be able to manage and pivot in those moments. So part of being prepared for retirement is having lots of plan B's and plan C's, which will also include having conversations with your partner, your spouse, your family, so they have a general idea of what, what is it that you would like or be on the, shall we say on standby for when you want to make the moves that you need to do. Yeah, you and I have talked a lot in the past about livable communities, about the age-friendly, uh, sort of, uh, uh, notion of having the eight domains all in place, whether it's housing or economic security or uh or uh community etc. Tell us, should people think about moving to communities that are quote unquote livable versus not so livable? Absolutely they they shouldn't, you know, the, the home is very important, but like the real estate mantra it says, it's about location, location, livable communities basically is not just is it have transportation alternatives, access to health care, cultural amenities, and the like, is it a place that will support you as you age? And there are tools out there. Yes, there's the designations of livable communities, but AARP also has a great website where you can punch in a zip code and it will give you scores out of fronts as to how livable or how age friendly a community might be. At the end of the day, it's up to you if you uh and your partner or if you're living solo to weigh which of those variables you think are the most important and how you'll be able to manage for transportation, housing, access to work. Frankly, don't ever forget the F word, access to fund matters. And access to a Dairy Queen with soft serve perhaps as well, huh? Got it. All right, Joe, uh, we've run out of time. We can't thank you enough for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us. It's greatly appreciated. We'll have you back on a future episode for sure. Great. Thanks so much, Bob. Great being here. So that wraps up this episode of Decoding Retirement. We hope we provided you with some actionable advice to plan for or live better in don't forget, if you've got questions about retirement, you can email me at yfpodcast@yahoo and we'll do our best to answer your question in a future episode. And lastly, remember you can listen to Decoding Retirement on all your favorite podcast platforms. This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services. 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Axios
08-07-2025
- Business
- Axios
North Shore news organization is growing with help from Google
The Record North Shore is one of 14 community news organizations receiving money from the Google News Initiative. Why it matters: The grant will help The Record expand its coverage at a time when Chicago's two major dailies have greatly reduced staff, and the Daily Herald is one of only a few newspapers primarily focused on covering the suburbs. Shaw Local in DeKalb County was the only other grant recipient in Illinois. State of play: The Record will use the $150,000 to add Skokie to its current footprint of Evanston, Highland Park, Wilmette, Winnetka, Glencoe, Northfield and Kenilworth. The three-person staff includes two reporters and a stable of freelancers. Editor-in-chief Joe Coughlin tells Axios the grant will hopefully lead to a larger staff. Flashback: Coughlin, Megan Bernard and Martin Carlino raised $60,000 through a Kickstarter campaign to start The Record in March 2020 after their former company, 22nd Century Media, folded. Zoom in: Skokie is a diverse northern suburb of more than 65,000 residents and is often considered a more affordable housing option than some of its North Shore neighbors. "Skokie has had a lot of government turmoil in the past few years. They've really been working hard toward electoral reform," Coughlin says about the decision to add the suburb to their coverage. "The way it was going really had people distrusting their local institutions." "Local news gets there late instead of getting there to let residents know, 'Hey, this is coming up at your local board meeting. Let's start paying attention,'" Coughlin adds.
CBS News
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Aurora Global Fest to feature high energy Taekwondo demo
U.S. Taekwondo Center's demonstration team takes to the stage at Global Fest in Aurora again U.S. Taekwondo Center's demonstration team takes to the stage at Global Fest in Aurora again U.S. Taekwondo Center's demonstration team takes to the stage at Global Fest in Aurora again Aurora is preparing to showcase its cultural diversity at this Saturday's Global Fest, the city's signature event. One popular group is back this year -- the U.S. Taekwondo Center's demonstration team. The Korean martial art instills its students with confidence and character. "We're very proud of the students that train here. They give their best effort," said Master Sean Jung. Master is the title given to someone who has attained a high level of expertise and experience in the martial art. U.S. Taekwondo Center, Aurora, Colorado Since 1988, the U.S Taekwondo Center in Aurora has trained thousands of students. The martial art cultivates discipline and respect. "We have five tenets to Taekwondo: it's courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and an indomitable spirit. And instilling those into our children from a young age and even our adults, it just helps them progress through life," said student Valerie Larson. Pushing your body to its limits. Taekwondo is an Olympic sport, but its accessible to anyone. "And appropriate for any age. That's the beauty of it, so you're constantly learning and constantly just improving," said Master Joe Coughlin. Expect to be dazzled when the U.S. Taekwondo Center takes to the big stage at Global Fest again. Mark K. Smith "Lots of board breaking, high energy, some KPop dancing, some flowers breaking and hopefully a lot of fun with our performances," said Jung. The martial art brought here by one of Aurora's largest immigrant groups is also one of the most popular sports here and across the globe. "As a Korean American born in the United States, I think Taekwondo allows me to express my culture, it's something that we can all be very proud of," added Jung. CBS CBS Colorado is excited to be a sponsor of Global Fest. Your Aurora reporters will be there. Global Fest takes place this Saturday June 14 from 11am to 6pm at the Aurora Municipal Center's Great Lawn, 15151 E. Alameda Parkway.
