By: Alijah Williams
December is a busy month for SKIP with our Christmas celebrations in full swing! This year, we have seen around 500 Christmas cards sent out to residents of retirement and long-term care homes in the area from the awesome students who participate in SKIP. It has been great to see students spreading the holiday cheer and making the holiday season special for the seniors in our area. We’d like to thank the students, teachers, and our coordinators for making this a great success!
Submitted Photo
Throughout this month, SKIP has also had the opportunity to hear from many of our student ambassadors about their visits with the seniors. Madison, a grade 6/7 student, sent us a great reflection from her visit at Park Lane Terrace. She said: “I love getting to know people who are not in our generation, so they can teach us things from when they were kids and we can show them things that are new to the world.”
Another reflection from Olivia, a grade 5 student who visited Telfer Place said: “My favourite part was hearing all the stories they told and hearing how they lived their life on a farm. What I am looking forward to next time is learning about their childhoods and what they do for fun.”
SKIP was also able to hear from St. Johns College students, who visited Riverview Terrace with SKIP as part of their “Mentoring Hearts” program. They had many positive experiences to share about their weekly visits with the seniors. Noah, Grade 11, said: “I really enjoyed hearing the stories of the residents there, they had some very insightful things to teach me. It gave me a greater appreciation for the history of our elders and what they have experienced over the years.”
Submitted Photo
Another student, Julia, Grade 12, said: “It has helped students learn to become more respectful and have more awareness towards the elderly because not every student has the privilege to have an older role model in their life.” We are so happy that students are enjoying these opportunities to connect with the seniors in their communities, and we look forward to sharing more student reflections!
Our November SKIP Into Technology event was a success, as seniors from the community came out to the Tourism Centre to learn more about their devices and how they can use technology to improve their everyday lives. SKIP would like to thank everyone who came out to our SKIP Into Technology events and sends a special thank you to all of our student volunteers for sharing their technological talents with the community! We hope to continue bringing SKIP into the community in the new year and look forward to all we can accomplish together!
We at SKIP would like to wish everyone Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas. We hope that this holiday season, we can all find time to share the love and cheer with our friends, family, and neighbours, both young and old. We are so happy with what we have accomplished together in 2019, and wish everyone the best going into the new year!
You don’t have to let the cheer end in December, however! SKIP would like to challenge the people in our community to post their photos with the hashtag #goodneighbourchallenge. Post your holiday photos spending time with neighbours, and friends and tag @skipbrantford on Instagram, or post them to our Facebook page Skip Brantford to spread some neighbourhood positivity!
