Bridging The Gap

by Kathryn Urick

 

Published August, 1985

Vital Connections

The Newsletter of the Foundation for Grandparenting

 

Intergenerational Sharing, a time of sharing experiences of young and old, is necessary and useful in helping to bridge the gap between the generations.  It was interesting and refreshing to meet Bonnie Willey and to learn how she is working to help bridge this gap in Ames, Iowa.

 

Bonnie values child advocacy and intergenerational sharing and uses these philosophies in her Day care Home, “Buttons and Bows.”  For two years Bonnie has operated the Home at her house located at 1114 Top-O-Hollow Road in Ames.

 

Every Friday her little pre-schoolers visit the North Grand Care Center, a nursing home in Ames.  While there, the residents and the pre-schoolers share together, play, sing, read stories, do exercises, touch, hug … the kinds of contacts that everyone knows are so important to us all.

 

Vital Connections, the Foundation for Grandparenting/Grandchildren, noted from a study of 65 nursing homes in the nation, that the “psychological and physical benefits extend to about 99% of those involved in this kind of sharing.”

 

Let us applaud Bonnie and her Little Buttons & Bows for their efforts in bringing joy and happiness into the North Grand Care Center.

 

National Grandparent Day

 

On Sept. 8, ’85, a torrent of publicity, celebrations, and ceremonies will occur across the nation to honor grandparents.

 

It all began with Mike Goldgar’s aunt who lived in a nursing home in Mike’s hometown in Atlanta, Ga.  Mike went to visit her in 1972, and on the way home he thought about all the lonely people there and realized that many of them were grandparents.

 

By and by he succeeded in interesting a small group of Congressmen in helping him to found a National Grandparent Day.

 

By 1978, 218 Congressmen sponsored the bill, and Pres. Carter proclaimed the first Grandparent Day.  Every September since, it has been celebrated both formally and informally.

 

What he wants to do, Goldgar says, is “to create observances of the holiday; token, symbolic things that bring grandparents and grandchildren together …. another step in helping to bridge the generation gap.”