WESTMINSTER : A Plan for Seniors to Tutor Youths Is OKd

A proposal to provide latchkey children with after-school supervision and senior citizens with part-time jobs has won approval from the City Council but still needs funding, officials said.

Under the plan, proposed by the city’s Aging Commission, about 25 children ages 6 to 9 would be cared for by senior citizens trained as tutors. The program would be operated at the Westminster Senior Center from 2 to 6 p.m. on weekday afternoons, when seniors typically do not use the facility, center director Betty Goyne said.

The city hopes to obtain state and federal grants and funding from private foundations, Goyne said. She also said that the city hopes to have the program running by September, but that depends on the funding.

The program is based on one created by the Columbia Senior Center in Washington, she said.

Gwen Coleman, director of the Columbia program, said the results can be impressive.

“We found many of our kids lack discipline, and old people are really strong on discipline,” Coleman said. “Schools said the kids began to improve in their behavior, improve their study skills, and they could focus better.”

The program also provides senior citizens with a job and a sense of purpose, Goyne said.

“Most people who have just retired, if they spent their lives at some kind of work experience, feel terribly bored and depressed,” Goyne said. “They feel that the world is passing them by.”

The program, called Project SHUE--Safety, Health, Understanding and Education--would cost about $100,000 a year, she said.

“It’s getting together two groups of people who need each other so badly. They’re both lonely and need to feel that someone cares and that someone thinks they’re worthwhile,” she said.