♪ [Music] ♪ - Hello and welcome to Generation Grit.

Our exciting new series discussing solutions to issues impacting our community through the eyes of Generation Z. I'm your host, Brenton Weyi.

Tonight, we're discussing the importance of mentorship and intergenerational healing.

Once again, we have an amazing panel with us.

Please welcome Jailan Cook.

He's a junior at East High School and a youth participant with GRASP, or the gang rescue and support project.

The program is primarily run by ex-gang members who broke free of the lifestyle and now advocate for youth who are at risk of gang involvement.

Thanks for being here, Jailan.

- Thanks for having me.

- Also joining us, Josephine Nguyen.

Josephine is a junior at Kent Denver has been volunteering at Bessie's Hope over the past summer.

Thanks for being here Josephine.

- Thanks for having me.

And rounding out our studio panel is Meredith Sehlmeyer.

She's a first-year student at CSU in Fort Collins and has been volunteering at Bessie's hope since 2020.

She's studying fish, wildlife, and conservation in biology with a concentration in wildlife biology.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you.

- Our expert on the phone today is Linda Holloway.

She's the co-founder and Co-director at Bessie's Hope.

Linda strives to educate people everywhere on the importance of intergenerational relationships and community involvement with our assisted living and nursing home elders.

Welcome Linda.

- Hi, thank you so much for allowing us to have this wonderful opportunity to talk about something we've been doing 30 years.

So, thank you.

- Absolutely.

And before we get started, we have a quick video that we'd like to play to learn more about what Bessie's Hope does and what GRASP does as well.

Let's take a look.

♪ [Music] ♪ - 60% of nursing home residents receive no personal visits.

Week by week, hour by hour, minute by minute.

Many nursing home residents know how it feels to have everything familiar taken away from them.

Including their ability to care for themselves.

Although nursing home staff are very caring, many residents feel forgotten by the community, which leads to depression and loneliness and for so many, these feelings accompany their aching desire to just go home.

However, when Bessie's hope volunteers arrive, spirits are lifted, and the resident's eyes sparkle again.

Their faces light up with joy and they are given a renewed sense of purpose and acknowledgement.

- I was young one time and they make me feel young again.

I just love it.

- We get residents who won't participate in other activities come down and they just shine, and they smile and they feel so warm and welcome and loved by these volunteers, so we just love Bessie's Hope.

We love working with them and we have great results when we have a group coming from Bessie's Hope.

- These kids really make my day.

- Through the Bessie's Hope programs, volunteers of all ages participate in ongoing relationship building visits with the elders.

Bessie's Hope provides education and training for all volunteers.

They learn how to interact with elders of all cognitive functioning levels, including advanced Alzheimer's in the Bessie's Hope Youth and Elders Program, the elders share their wisdom and wonderful life stories, while respect and compassion are ignited in the hearts and minds of the youth.

The youth who participate in this program develop a sense of caring and respect for elders as well as respect for themselves.

- At Denver Youth Programs, your contributions go a mighty long way.

We're able to fund programs like GRASP, Teen Rescue and Support Project, GRASP enterprises are social enterprise doing soap screening and embroidery.

AIM our hospital-based Violence Intervention Program and Denver Health and University.

Metro Denver partners our one-on-one youth mentoring program and our grass beef park guides doing work in Denver City Park.

- What wonderful work by these organizations.

To get this conversation started, Jalen.

I'd love to start with you.

Can you tell us a bit about how you got involved with GRASP?

- Well, I got involved because you know my mom, she works there, so I don't know she was like, well you got to work there too.

Get used to the community and like help the community.

- And when you started, like-- how were you feeling where you nervous?

Or did you just kind of fit right?

- I ain't going to lie I didn't want to be there, but like overtime I just build a relationship with everybody.

Yeah.

- That's awesome.

Sometimes you know you need that motherly nudge to do things, so that's good.

For Josephine I'll start with you, but I'll ask you both the same question, which is how did you get involved with Bessie's Hope?

- Yeah, so my teacher actually sent out an email to the whole school telling us that there was an opportunity to volunteer at Bessie's Hope and work with the elderly.

And I mean, I don't usually get to do that, like interact with different groups, so I wanted to take the opportunity to do so.

- Awesome.

Meredith.

- And then my high school, I was the President of our key club, which is like a volunteering organization for the two final years of my high school career and so that just-- opportunity came up with our sponsor.

He brought it to my attention and so I was able to volunteer with Bessie's Hope and get that rolling.

- That's awesome.

Key club?

- Yeah.

- It's a good one.

So, Linda, I want to take a second to bring you to the conversation.

From your perspective and your experience, the work that you've done.

What do you think are some of the benefits of intergenerational relationships and mentoring?

- Well first, as my co-founder mentioned on the video that she put together 60% of nursing home and assisted living elders received no personal visitors, which is not OK. And so, we started-- It was like the work was definitely meant to be, because on the other end of the age spectrum we have so many kids who are misdirected and without the guidance that they need.

So, we discovered that bringing youth and elders together, and especially those who have no one, on both sides of the age gap, it gives them a sense of purpose.

It gives them a sense of belonging and also helps them see and develop empathy and what that means and compassion.

It helps people who are-- might be steered to toward bullying, for instance, the experts in bullying said that the thing that bullies all share in common is having no compassion and you have to experience it first-hand.

You can't read about compassion, so they said Bessie's Hope definitely does that.

It gives them the experience they can integrate it into their core being.

So, for both ends of the age spectrum you have the elders who should be considered the wisdom keepers of our culture coming together and so many of these isolated totally from any other part of the community.

So, you bring the two groups together and the rest is magic, or miraculous.

- The rest is magic.

I love that.

I'm going to hold on to that.

Based on what Linda just said, actually just you know I'd love to ask you a question.

How do you think that your sort of relationship with kind of the elderly has changed from when you first started to right now?

- Yeah, so I actually I came in and I like, didn't know what to do, so the facility was really small, so one of the directors like lead me into a room and asked if one of the elders there wanted to talk and yeah, so we just like talked for a really long time and after that I got more comfortable talking with the rest of the elders.

Yeah, so I mean.

I started to like the connections I made started to grow so much more like in such a short amount of time.

- That's awesome.

Jailan, I'd love to ask you a question.

So, for those who don't know, kind of what a day in the life of GRASP is like.

Like when you actually go and report.

What do you-- What actually happens like what kind of activities, programs do they all do?

- Well, I did a lot like we focused on entrepreneurship, making money.

We focused on like going outside to the park and like you know, interacting with our community.

Yeah, stuff like that like usually-- oh yeah, and also like teaching the community about animals.

And like their environment.

Yeah, stuff like that.

- Cool.

I would like to learn about animals.

That sounds fun.

Meredith, could you share-- do you have any thoughts on how being connected with individuals of other generations has benefited you as an individual?

- I think that there is-- I always like hearing stories from people who like, have so much more experience than me.

It just allows me to like, I don't know it's just very interesting to hear all of those different stories, so it's really nice to hear that different perspective and also allows me to have a different perspective on like, what's happening around me because they do have so much more wisdom and they have so much more experience that I'm able to step away and almost see the world from a different point of view.

- I love that.

Jailan, what about you?

What about have you connected with like, some people in an older generation?

- Yeah, actually I say like my uncle.

He's been there for a long time, so like having him, there was like a good opportunity.

In like I'll say also my boss too like she's been there for a long time.

She had her traumas and experiences.

And like, you know, she tells us like what she's going through and like how to you know like kind of navigate through life.

So that what happen to us.

- And do you think that's been helpful?

Like getting the advice from the older generations.

- Mhm.

- Well, yeah, it just seems like it's really-- It's been really awesome to kind of hear your experiences so far.

It's like the wisdom and the teachings of other generations.

And so, going to you Josephine I'm curious about like, you know when people think about these kinds of relationships, like young people and old people, I think there are maybe some misconceptions, or maybe some, I don't know, apprehensions that people have like, do you have any any thoughts on what you would say If people have those kinds of thoughts?

- Yeah, I think when people first think of themselves interacting with a different age group, I think they think that it's hard to connect and relate to them because of the age gap, but from my experience it's actually like the age gap actually gave us a lot of things to talk about.

So yeah, - that's awesome.

Meredith, what about you?

- I think it was really interesting 'cause I've grown up like in nursing homes, my grandma used to work at a nursing home, so I've always had like experience with like people from other generations, but when it came to working with Bessie's Hope, I was able to like work in a different way.

I wasn't just like a little kid being in a nursing home, I was like actually doing something, so like the first thing I notice was everyday language that I tend to use might not be like an equal playing ground for talking with other people just because I use a lot of like every day like slang for my generation.

- ... - Yeah.

[Laughs] So, you know yeah, I just have to think about what I'm saying and how I phrase it before I like actually try to present myself.

- Cool.

Linda, I'd love to go back to you for a moment.

I know that in American Society especially, I feel that we have a lot of challenges with ageism and I'm curious about if you have any thoughts on how we can work to kind of breakdown these barriers and increase connections between younger and older generations.

- Yeah, I think that there are so many myths and so many misconceptions in our society.

As you said, it's a-- since we since we at Bessie's Hope feel that elders and we like to use that word because it connotates wisdom and throughout history all indigenous societies went to their elders for advice.

So, we think that the erosion of respect and compassion and empathy, sort of-- there's a correlation of how that-- the erosion began with the-- throw away-- the elders and you know putting them "away", so to speak, because they're no longer contributing members of the society.

So, the way that we found to bring the two groups together most successfully is to empower the elders and at the same time empower the youth because the elders need to feel that they have value again and a lot of times young people are searching and wondering, you know, am I really a contributing part of the big picture?

And how can I do more?

Or they might be thinking?

I think I'm an accident and I don't really belong here, so on both of those ends we found that bringing the young people together with the elders they do stop and listen like I've heard them talk about listening to the stories 'cause we in our training we tell them these people have seen more changes than we could possibly ever see in our lifetimes and so to actually take the time to listen, that select step one in bringing the generations together is listening and what the elders love to do is listen to the youth because they like to feel like they're plugging in to what is happening out in the world.

'cause they don't get to feel that very often.

So, for people who want to get involved with intergenerational activities and work.

Which in my humble opinion is the way to make our society a whole lot better.

Bringing the generations together is to have a group of young people get involved with a group of people, elders in nursing homes who do need them because we have a whole lot of residential treatment center, teenagers who work with us and so often they say things like these people really need us here and they've never felt that before in their young lives.

So, it's a, it's a two-way street and I think our culture, our society really needs that two-way street happening a lot more.

- Thank you so much for that perspective, Linda, that was amazing.

And yes, I love the use of the term elders.

I think it's extremely powerful.

I'm going to throw just a question, generally out to the panel and whoever feels inspired to answer it.

Go for it, but I'm curious, what do you think-- how would you encourage other members of your generation to get involved with these sorts of intergenerational experiences?

- I can talk if you guys want me to.

I feel like, just go out and like, do something 'cause like, sitting around and thinking about how you're going to actually go out and do something usually doesn't lead to you going out and like, engaging with elders.

So, if you go out and like, or even just look up ways to help in your community most nursing homes and like, living facilities, do need help, they just need volunteers and they are like, willing to help, like have most people come in and volunteer at their facilities.

So, just go out and like, look for where you can help instead of like, sitting and thinking about how you can help.

- Awesome.

And either for Jailan, or Josephine I'm curious, is there like a small moment that either of you remember where you felt like, particularly transformed, or helped in an interaction that you had either at GRASP, or Bessie's Hope?

Or it's like, maybe you're worried about something, you needed advice, or you were thinking about a direction in your life and there was like, a particular conversation, or experience that sort of helped you in that?

- Yeah, so for me I talked with a lot of people that had passions and like, even when I'm not volunteering, I still think of them and what they talked about, about their passions.

Cause it really inspired me to think about my passions more when I'm like, looking for toward my future and stuff.

Yeah.

- Jailan, any thoughts?

- Alright, Jailan I Have a different question for you, in that case, which is, Like, would you encourage other people to get involved with the work that everyone's doing at GRASP, and if so, why?

- I would because not a lot of people really, especially now like go out their house and really like, try to interact with the community.

It's really just like, I'm just do this today and I'm just going back home.

So yeah.

I would do that because especially I remember I did this one where we was teaching little kids like, animals and I remember this one part when this little kid was like, I had taught him something about like, how canines have like, sharp teeth, or something like that and he was like and he told his friend behind him he was like, did you know that canines have sharp teeth?

And I was like wow.

So, that was like a pivotal moment I was like, that's crazy like, I taught him this.

So.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I would encourage you.

- Yeah, and if you, you know as a high school student could teach these young people.

Imagine what our elders know that they could pass along to Generation Z and even the generations that are coming after you all.

That's really cool.

And just as a quick follow up to that, I'm curious.

Do you think, like, have you felt like, a stronger community feel for people who have been involved in GRASP 'cause you said like this idea of people getting out in the community more?

- Could you reiterate?

Like.

- Yeah.

So, like do you feel like, the community has been brought together more like with people actually going out and interacting with each other?

- I know in GRASP, they have these things called like, safe zones.

Basically, you could go in there and you can just have fun.

You know, you don't have to worry about gang violence, and you know, you could just have like, have fun, just you know, be social.

Interact with things.

Yeah.

- Meredith, what do you-- what's something that you're proud of?

Especially like, having been in Bessie's Hope, or with Bessie's Hope since 2020 like, what's something you're proud of having worked with the organization?

- I think just the fact that like, I was able to go in person because a lot of the work I did at the beginning in like, just at the beginning of my time with Bessie's Hope was online, so I was able to come in and like actually go into living facilities and like, interact with these elders.

So, I'm really proud of the fact that like I was able, or we were able to make that work.

- How did the online part work?

I'm very curious about that.

- We had, or at least for me personally, there was someone who was an activities director, or who worked with the activities department at the facility.

Who would help with zoom and then I would be on the call on them for my first couple of calls Linda, or someone else who worked at Bessie's Hope would be on the call and we would-- I would just interview and talk with the person over zoom with the assistance of Linda and the person at the facility.

- Cool, would you just like, talk, or were there other activities?

- It was prompted, so it was almost framed like an interview, so I don't know if your experience was the same but we were given a like list of questions to ask, and then afterwards we could ask like and talk about anything else that we wanted to and then we would go and find like, pictures and other resources that related to the things that we like, talked about during that interview and so I would share what I had found and then I would have another set of questions that all built on top of each other.

I know for my last couple of times going into the facility in person I had gotten to the point where we didn't have it like a script, so I could-- we could just have a normal conversation and like, get to know each other better versus that like, more facilitated learning about someone.

- That's awesome.

And so do you think this is again for any of you, after you graduate, high school, college, etc.

and you're off in the world, will these experiences that you've had, are you going to carry on with them, or you going to continue to try to cultivate intergenerational relationships as adults?

Or older adults, suppose.

- I definitely think I'll hold on to like, the experiences that I've had at Bessie's Hope especially because the interactions weren't like my everyday interactions.

You know they're with older people and they had different things to say than people from our generation, so I think that's-- that was very impactful.

- Yeah, I think I will continue just like, volunteering in general.

I've always volunteered, so I'm trying to continue that through my college career.

I have a little bit less free time, but I'm trying to still continue that on and so I can see myself in the future continuing to volunteer and pursuing other intergenerational relationships.

- What about you Jailan?

- I don't know.

- Not sure?

I think that's okay, but it sounds like you know getting involved in the community is you know, has been helpful for you, so maybe you'll carry that on after high school and college and what not.

- Yeah, I see what I could find, but if I do have an opportunity, I'll take it.

- The kids are looking up to you, who's going to learn about the animals without you.

But yeah, I appreciate that.

Linda, I have a question for you.

I'm curious what are some resources that young people, or adults can find to get more involved with intergenerational relationships and learning from elders?

- Well, actually since ageism is one of my favorite things to talk about, or against, I should say there is an organization called Changing The Narrative.

People could look that up and we're wanting to-- we have been engaging with them and they're wanting to have more community participation in intergenerational conversations about how to eradicate ageism and so that's again, Changing The Narrative is a resource and there's an intergenerational organizations based out of Washington DC and they've featured Bessie's Hope a number of times, but it's a kind of an umbrella that's a national organization.

It's called Generations United, so people could go to that website and again for Bessie's Hope we do work with families and individuals and adult groups because we need to plug not just kids and elders in together, but a lot of-- as I said while ago, there's so many myths and misconceptions about older people and what they have to offer an we have in our society something I think my co-founder and I have started calling it this, in our culture, there seems to be this underlying teaching that the older a person becomes, the less they become, and it's completely opposite is true, so if you would like to get involved and go to our website then we love to plug individuals and families, adult groups, youth groups.

So yeah, just check us out.

- Thank you so much, Linda, and thank you for the panel for sitting down and telling your stories and the stories of your organizations to the community.

This is really important to hear from you and that is all the time that we have for tonight but thank you so much for watching and seek out the elders in your life whether those are family members, community members.

We're excited to have a series like this, allowing young people to speak their truth and to highlight all of the great work that's being done in our community.

You can find us here every Friday night, or you can watch online at PBS 12 dot org and find us here every Friday at PBS 12.

If you have a question, or comment, you can reach out to us at Grit at PBS 12 dot org, or you can reach out on any social media channel.

I'm Brenton Weyi, and for all of us here at PBS 12.

Thank you.

Thanks for watching and have a fantastic night.

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