“It’s your turn. Try to get a strike — but I’m winning,” my 6-year-old son, Jared, told a resident of the memory care unit at Sunrise at George Mason, an assisted-living facility in Fairfax.
She rolled the plastic bowling ball. All the pins fell. She smiled. Not one to lose gracefully, Jared mumbled, “Good job,” and flopped onto an ottoman to sulk while his friends Brice Bartley Jr., 10, and Marilyn Bartley, 8, set up the pins again.
Nearby, my daughter, Ellie, 8, giggled as she tossed a balloon to our favorite resident: my mom, Loraine Collins, 83, who has lived in the unit known as Reminiscence for two years.
This was a typical scene on Thursdays this summer when my kids and a revolving handful of their friends, ages 2 to 10, visited as volunteers, part of Sunrise Senior Living’s Intergenerational Program to encourage engagement between the elderly and youngsters. The children made bead bracelets, played ring toss and generally entertained the 20 or so residents who have cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
She rolled the plastic bowling ball. All the pins fell. She smiled. Not one to lose gracefully, Jared mumbled, “Good job,” and flopped onto an ottoman to sulk while his friends Brice Bartley Jr., 10, and Marilyn Bartley, 8, set up the pins again.
Nearby, my daughter, Ellie, 8, giggled as she tossed a balloon to our favorite resident: my mom, Loraine Collins, 83, who has lived in the unit known as Reminiscence for two years.
This was a typical scene on Thursdays this summer when my kids and a revolving handful of their friends, ages 2 to 10, visited as volunteers, part of Sunrise Senior Living’s Intergenerational Program to encourage engagement between the elderly and youngsters. The children made bead bracelets, played ring toss and generally entertained the 20 or so residents who have cognitive impairments such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
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