St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care participants are celebrating Global Intergenerational Week with tons of togetherness and fun activities!
It’s 10 o’clock on a Tuesday morning and in the Southwest wing of St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care’s Stein Campus, some personalized fashion is taking shape. Four-year-old Paulina’s palm and spread fingers are slathered with sky blue paint which, given the go-ahead, she presses onto the back of a denim jacket. Paulina admires her handprint, then hops off the chair to go wash her hand before her hair and fuzzy sweatshirt sport some paint, too.
Meantime, adult client Samiah takes her turn, choosing a bright orchid paint that matches the twists in her hair for her handprint. Watching the proceedings, preschoolers Olivia and Hazel wait patiently to be the “polka-dotters” on the jacket’s sleeves. Down the table, adult client Janelle presses a white handprint onto a jacket while entertaining the room with comic observations. Shortly, little Olivia’s handprint will join hers on the jacket.
A day earlier, in the same kitchen space (ideal for messy projects), clients of all ages crumbled, stirred and squished side-by-side to create individual-sized “dirt cakes,” topped with colorful gummy worms. And a few days before that, in the building’s sunny atrium, a Frank Sinatra impersonator had senior clients on both levels of the building tapping toes, snapping fingers and grabbing pals’ hands to jive and swing to the smooth tunes. Scattered among them, toddlers jump and bop along as caregivers snap they photos and chuckle.
Activities like these mean it takes just minutes for guests of St. Ann Center for Intergenerational Care to understand why the organization is considered a national and global leader in Intergenerational Care. And, as organizations around the world celebrate Global Intergenerational Week April 24-30, our activities directors came up with even more inspiring ways to bring adult day care and childcare participants together in artful, musical, entertaining and sometimes memorably messy ways.
The St. Ann Center story began in 1983 as a mission of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi in the then-fledgling field of adult day care. With our history planted deep in Franciscan values — making peace, reverencing all creation, showing compassion, and creating a caring community — the adult day care grew quickly, adding participants, space, necessary services and, in 1988, a childcare wing. St. Ann Center cofounder Sister Edna Lonergan traveled around the nation and the world sharing her wisdom and expertise about the importance of caring for vulnerable seniors and the intellectual and emotional growth experienced by all generations when the adults and kids spent time creating and socializing together.
According to the National Institutes of Health Library of Medicine:
IDCs [Intergenerational Day Cares] foster learning opportunities for both generations and increase social engagement among older adults and children who need not be family. Intergenerational programs produce advancement in sensory stimulation; enhancement of self-esteem; increased positive socialization, and intellectual development for both older adults and children. Intergenerational programs provide older adults with opportunities to use their life experience and expertise to develop and share activities such as cooking, science, and storytelling, to be childcare provider or partners in programs such as intergenerational theater. Children involved in intergenerational programs are more prosocial and the nurturing presence of older adults helps bring a familial aspect to the preschool setting.
But this week at St. Ann Center, all of those benefits fall under just a few categories: togetherness and fun. Check out these photos of Global Intergenerational Week here at Stein Campus.
