B.I.O.N.I.C. Kids Showing Love to the Elderly
Can a hard bitter life be melted by love from kids? It happened to Rose, and kids’ lives will never be the same!
When Sandy Austin was asked if the Sunrise Living Center could start a B.I.O.N.I.C. Team, she was excited to hear what Ronda Knuth’s vision was for her elderly residents at the center. She had heard Sandy on a local radio program talking about B.I.O.N.I.C. Teams in the schools. Ronda was fascinated to hear about B.I.O.N.I.C., and thought it could be the answer to some issues her residents were facing that hindered their ability to thrive.
In our last blog, Sandy showed how the partnership between Sunrise and her B.I.O.N.I.C. Team at Pomona High School transformed a student’s life and her family by what she learned through the monthly “Table Talks” with the residents from Sunrise Senior Living Center. During the lunches, the residents and the students answered questions related to the holiday of that month to help both generations gain a better understanding of the other.
In the last ten years, Sandy was seeing that more and more kids were having to live with grandparents for various reasons. Many issues hindered their relationships due to a lack of understanding of each other. It was Sandy’s hope that the B.I.O.N.I.C. Intergenerational Team’s monthly “Table Talks” could heal and mend some of those relationships.
When the Sunrise residents first started coming to Pomona, they would walk through the cafeteria to the counseling office in the middle of lunch. The elderly would look at the students through a lens of fear like they must be “hoodlums” or trouble-makers, and the students made comments about those “ancient people” hobbling by on a walker, cane, or limping.
But as time went by, the scene became very different. The residents would joke with the kids about the cold pizza on their plates or with a wink tell them to eat all their vegetables. Kids would ask if they could take a resident’s arm and escort her to the office, or hold the door open for them. The secretaries said that was their favorite day of the month – to see those residents come through with their smiles and saying hi!
Rose was one of the senior citizens from Sunrise who came to most of the “Table Talks.” She was a very bitter woman from growing up and having a hard life in Appalachia. She always started her answers with, “You kids wouldn’t understand this, but…,” and then go on to tell a story of abject poverty and violence that she experienced throughout her life. At first, the students were drawn to her but as they got to know her, they started pulling away from her because she was so negative.
For Valentine’s Day one year, the Pomona B.I.O.N.I.C. Team decided to make fleece tie lap blankets for the 78 residents at Sunrise. They asked for people at school to help sponsor a blanket for $5.00 for one of the residents. Rose had two kids who wanted to sponsor a blanket for her to show her some love. She was the only one with two students.
On the day of the luncheon, the students were told to go up to the resident they sponsored to help them pick out a blanket. Sandy said to Rose, “Rose, I don’t know if you realize that you are the only one who had two students sponsor your blanket. That shows how much our kids love having you come each month!” A tear started to well up in Rose’s eye, but she fought it off because she had to be strong. Yet her smile that day was the biggest we had ever seen on her face.
When they went back to Sunrise, Rose asked Ronda if she could help deliver the blankets to those who couldn’t come to Pomona that day. She went into one man’s room who never came out and never had any visitors. Rose told him the kids had made a blanket for him. He pulled out his wallet and asked how much he owed for it. Rose said, “Nothing, you don’t have to pay anything.” The man said, “Why?” Rose said, “It’s a gift from the kids at Pomona High School because they love us. He started to cry and cradled that blanket to his chest. He was never seen without that blanket after that.
The next month when Rose came back for the “Table Talk,” she still had that slight smile and she was a changed woman. She still had that edge to her, but there was also a kindness and gentleness underneath it all that showed as she answered the questions and talked with the kids. When answering the questions of the day, she didn’t say anymore, “You kids wouldn’t understand this,” because she knew they wanted to understand so they could know how best to care about her.
B.I.O.N.I.C. is a movement that started 17 years ago that is reaching across generations and mending fences as students have a greater understanding of the elderly and the elderly are breaking down the stereotypes they have learned about kids as trouble-makers from the news. With the number of elderly residents who are put in senior centers with no visitors and die from a lonely existence, B.I.O.N.I.C. students are hoping they now know that there are kids out there who still value them and their contribution to this world! Believe it, or not they care!