Making a Difference in Your Community : Young and Old Come Together at Day Care
The outside walls of the Mark Taper Intergenerational Day Care Center are splashed with brightly colored murals showing old and young joining hands, reading, sharing.
Inside those walls, the young and old are just getting acquainted, learning names, faces and how to span the generations.
In side-by-side centers in the Van Nuys complex, children from 6 weeks to 5 years old and seniors, many suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and strokes, spend their days.
The complex, sponsored by Organizations for the Needs of the Elderly and the YMCA, allows parents and people caring for the elderly a chance to work, to run errands, to avoid what workers call “the 36-hour day.”
With the help of volunteers, the center also gives the children and their elders a chance to mingle in small-group settings.
Eight seniors, two in wheelchairs, sat in one of the children’s playrooms Thursday, waiting for their young neighbors to join them for songs.
As a dozen children filed into the room, two bold youngsters marched up to the seniors and started shaking hands.
“Glad to meet you. Glad to meet you,” one boy beamed as he pumped his hand up and down.
By the end of the first song, a 3-year-old with banana curls had snuggled up to 88-year-old Sam Fiddler, who clapped and patted the child’s back, clearly delighted.
“Isn’t she something?” he asked later, as he helped her make coconut-covered treats in the seniors’ recreation room.
That kind of connection was exactly what center workers hoped for.
“We want to raise self-esteem. This is what we’re hoping this will do for both of them,” said Judy Wolfe, acting intergenerational coordinator and director of the adult day-care component.
When the two generations meet, the children feel a sense of family and community and the seniors feel like they’re still useful.
“They can still love the children. They can still hold a child in their lap,” said Wolfe. “It gives them a feeling of independence and being needed. We all need that.”
The seniors, in turn, make the volunteer workers at the center feel useful.
Butte Germaine, 68, started volunteering at the center four years ago, after her husband passed away.
“I decided I had to find someone who needed me,” she said. “It gives me more than I think it gives them.”
Stan Lubitsch has worked at the center for two years. After the 62-year-old suffered four heart attacks, doctors told him to retire.
“This is a way of life for me,” he said. “I can give something to these people and they can give something to me. I love these people. My reward is when they give me a kiss on the cheek.”
For more information or to volunteer, call the center at (818) 708-6625.
Other volunteering opportunities:
The Calabasas Beautiful Committee is seeking help in garden and landscape maintenance. Call Daphne Fineman at (818) 222-5494 or the Calabasas Community Services Department at (818) 878-4225.
Volunteer Senior Advocates are needed to assist in a case-management program for frail seniors who wish to remain at home. Training and supervision will be provided. Call the Family Services Agency of Burbank at (818) 845-7671.
Bret Harte Children’s Center in Burbank needs a classroom assistant to help staff members with activities such as reading and art projects. The center is also seeking a retired nurse to take temperatures, check first-aid kits and file health records. Tuberculosis tests are required and training is available. Contact Dee Call at (818) 953-9503.
Getting Involved is a weekly listing of volunteering opportunities. Please address prospective listings to Getting Involved, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Or fax them to (818) 772-3338.