Generation to Generation
By interacting with young people, older adults can learn new innovations and technologies and improve their memory. By engaging with older people, children can improve communication skills and gain positive attitudes about aging, greater problem-solving abilities and higher reading scores. Bringing diverse ages together also helps dispel stereotypes.
Cheverly Village offers many opportunities for intergenerational contact. Best known is that the Village enables people of all ages to help seniors with specific services. Among the over 60 trained Cheverly Village volunteers are teen-agers and young adults who have provided valuable help in areas such as technology and outdoor chores. Younger children have delighted seniors when they have accompanied their parents on visits with seniors or in raking leaves.
Less well known are the new clubs and activities sponsored by the Village. A Games group plays Scrabble and other board games monthly at the Community Center. Village members and volunteers are invited, and we also welcome friends including and high schoolers (home schoolers or others during vacations) who would enjoy spending an afternoon making friends or perhaps finding lively competitors among the older adults.
At last month’s meeting of the Cheverly Village Book Club, volunteers and members ranging in age from their 30s to 90s shared their own families’ experiences with immigration, from Ellis Island and covered wagons to the Great Migration. The Book Club will be meeting monthly on Wednesday afternoons. A singing group expects to start meeting monthly as well.
Finally, Cheverly Village and Cheverly Parent Resource Center (CPRC) are currently planning activities to involve our preschool-age community members with residents who are young at heart, if not in age.
For more details on all these opportunities, please check the calendar on cheverlyvillage.org. If you are not yet a Cheverly Village member or volunteer but embrace the value of multi-generational fun, please contact events@cheverlyvillage.org to let us know of your interest in joining the fun with our generation mingling!
Please call or write us to find out how to support the Village as a volunteer, a member, or through your one-time or monthly donations. We are thankful for every gift—financial, time, and talent!
Village@cheverlyvillage.org – 240 770 1033 – www.cheverlyvillage.org – 3416 Belleview Ave.