The Kyle Hyland Foundation and Carquinez Village form partnership

BENICIA — November 8, 2021 – The Kyle Hyland Foundation (KHF) for Teen Support and Carquinez Village are partnering together on an Intergenerational program to connect older adults with teens. By promoting meaningful cross-age relationships between the two groups, the two organizations hope to decrease social isolation in older adults and increase their sense of belonging, self-esteem, and well-being, while also improving social and emotional skills of the youth participants. For this program, various options will be explored including classes for seniors taught by teens on technology and social media, and for teens taught by older adults on cooking, career/trades, gardening, etc. In addition, small group discussions, video memoirs created through a teen interview of a senior, mentoring of teens by older adults and joint activities such as projects at Benicia Makerspace, field trips to art museums, art projects, and social events will be considered. This program is partially funded by the City of Benicia through Human Services Board grants.

The KHF and Carquinez Village hosted the first Intergenerational program community event at the Benicia Teen Center on October 14, 2021. Five Benicia High School (BHS) students from the Career Technical Education program including Rohan Jadhav, Elizabeth Beauparlant, Keya Chand, Dushant Puri, Nolan Page and one BHS student from the Benicia Teen Center (Thomas Sharp) provided technical instruction to six seniors from Carquinez Village including Karen Burns, Mimi Cohn, Joanne Rosenthal, Nancy Mahoney, Burt Mahoney, Shirley Gotro, and Cookie Napala. The older adults learned how to navigate the features of their smartphones and/or laptops including texting, emailing, social media, etc. This first event was very successful with seniors expressing gratitude for all that they had been taught as well as eagerness to participate in future events. One older couple in attendance, who had been married for 63 years, learned how to text each other and were thrilled to make a date for dinner later that evening through text. The students were happy to help and are also looking forward to future sessions.

To learn more about The Kyle Hyland Foundation and its teen support programs, please visit https://kylehyland.com/.

To learn more about Carquinez Village and its programs for older adults and opportunities to volunteer, please visit https://www.carquinezvillage.org/.