{"id":6796,"date":"2018-02-05T12:14:55","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T17:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/news\/?p=6796"},"modified":"2018-07-17T11:08:52","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T15:08:52","slug":"elizabethtown-college-students-share-stories-of-older-adults-as-part-of-aarp-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/2018\/02\/05\/elizabethtown-college-students-share-stories-of-older-adults-as-part-of-aarp-grant\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabethtown College students share stories of older adults as part of AARP grant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elizabethtown College was chosen, this past fall, as one of 21 higher ed \"\"<\/a>institutions to receive an AARP-funded Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) grant. More than 100 institutions applied.<\/p>\n

AARP, the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to helping \"\"<\/a>people 50 and older to improve their quality of life, developed the grant to help identify and serve the needs\u2014hunger, housing, income generation, social isolation\u2014of older adults in college and university communities.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 $13,000 \u201cIntergenerational Connections:\u00a0 Students Serving Older Adults\u201d grant also focuses on helping college students develop new skills and knowledge; increase retention through service learning; and develop a national network that recognizes the mutual benefits of intergenerational connections.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis aligned with what we were already looking at for the Center for Community and Civic Engagement,\u201d said Joel Janisewski, director of the College Center. \u201cIt was an area we were already invested in.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the College previously had a partnership in place, it worked with The Factory Ministries, in Paradise, Pennsylvania, a hub for connecting needs and resources in eastern Lancaster County. \u201cEarly on in the project we focused on social isolation, with income generation project work coming later,\u201d Janisewski said.<\/p>\n

Together, the organizations connected interested students with lower-income, older adults in the rural community. After a brief meeting, the attendees paired off on their own based on common ground. \u00a0Then, over several visits to the older adults\u2019 homes or other locations, the partners worked on life narratives. They spent a total of seven hours in conversation, Janisewski said. \u201cThis developed a deeper kind of relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The interaction, he said, connects well to the College\u2019s \u201cLife Span and Aging\u201d coursework and to social work, psychology and occupational therapy majors, but there has been interest from students in international business, business administration, biology and engineering, as well.<\/p>\n

Audrey Shultz, a junior engineering major, heard about the program last semester from Janisewski.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love being able to help people and the way the project was described to me; I would be able to get to know someone from Lancaster County and be able to help them live better day to day. The funny thing is that I thought that this project was purely volunteer, so it was nice to find out we would get a stipend,\u201d Shultz said.<\/p>\n

The stipend, which covers the travel costs and student compensation, comes from the AARP grant.<\/p>\n

As Shultz and her program partner learned to know one another, \u201csomething just clicked,\u201d Shultz said. \u201cWe got really close and got to know about each other\u2019s personal lives. We still talk, and I am looking forward to working with her again this semester.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shultz said the two met at Starbucks. \u201cWe discussed her life,\u201d Shultz said. \u201cWe talked through her childhood, teens and her adult life. (She) is such a great person and reminds me a lot of my own mother, which helped us to connect on a more personal level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shultz said her take-home message of the first part of this project is that everyone needs more compassion and understanding.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou begin to realize that the older people in our society were our age once, too. It makes it a little easier to relate. \u2026 I feel as though we, as a generation, are losing our relationships with the older folks in our lives. This project is a great way to bring that back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Janisewski said the first goal for the initial seven partners in this pilot program was to get to know each other for at least six hours, but several of the students, finding a true connection with their partners, ended up spending more time than required.<\/p>\n

The second goal of the grant is to assist older adults with technical and computer-related skills, which, Janisewski said, can run the gamut. \u201cSome begin at square one; some worked in the IT and tech industry,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s driven by the need of the partner.\u201d<\/p>\n

One community member, who is an artist, he said, was looking to set up a website to sell her artwork.<\/p>\n

Marilyn Weaver, a self-sufficiency advocate with The Factory, said she is \u201cpersonally passionate about connecting relationships across generations\u201d and is pleased with the interaction of the students and seniors as they get to know one another. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting for me to see the impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the grant is just through May 2018, the College can apply, again, for the next academic year to continue the momentum, Janisewski said, noting that he is currently recruiting students for the spring semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like to develop ways for the students to build more focus, especially locally focused,\u201d Janisewski said. \u201cWe want to connect to the community we are part of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabethtown College was chosen, this past fall, as one of 21 higher ed institutions to receive an AARP-funded Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) grant. More than 100 institutions applied. AARP, the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to helping people 50 and older to improve their quality of life, developed the grant to help identify and serve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":6798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[775,7],"tags":[1140,490,1139,1128],"class_list":["post-6796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus","category-campus-community","tag-academic","tag-achievements-2","tag-ccce","tag-feature","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6796"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7431,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6796\/revisions\/7431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}