U. program unites students, senior citizens

The sound of a dozen excited middle school children echoes off the walls of a small room in the Mercy Douglas nursing home every Tuesday and Friday as they gather to participate in activities ranging rom writing biographies to balloon volleyball with residents of the home under the supervision of their teacher and Penn group leaders. The students, from West Philadelphia's Shaw Middle School, are part of the Magic Me program, a Baltimore-based national nonprofit organization whose mission is "intergenerational service-learning," according to the program's Philadelphia director, College junior Jay Reid. The Philadelphia branch is a West Philadelphia Improvement Corps program run out of Penn's Center for Community Partnerships. Reid, who has directed the program since he transferred to Penn from Tufts University in 1996, said the program aims to "establish long-term, meaningful relationships between the elders and the middle school students." Reid and the four group leaders meet weekly to plan activities that will "hit all angles" -- academic, sensory, motor and fun -- and implement them with the two different groups of students and elders who meet separately Tuesday and Friday at the home near 45th and Walnut streets. Cynthia Green, who teaches the seventh and eighth-grade students who visit the nursing home Fridays, said Magic Me -- through activities as simple as bingo -- teaches her students a great deal about history as they interact with and learn about the lives of their older partners. The nursing-home residents also say they gain from the activities. Philip Kohler, who teaches the sixth- and seventh-grade students who visit the home Tuesdays, called the program a "win-win" situation. Mercy Douglas Recreational Therapy Director Wendy Phillips added that the program's success in the nursing home is due to the intergenerational nature of the program. "Old people love to see young people doing positive things," she said. And while the elders benefit from the program's consistency and repetition, the students see what the elderly are really like and realize that they do not just "sit in wheelchairs and rot away," she said. Reid noted the children gain a "sense of empowerment" from having a positive impact on the elders. He added that a similar feeling is common among the elders because of the "meaningful connections" they have with the students along with the exposure they receive to different parts of the community through the program. And Green said her students are "very attached to the Penn students" and commended the fact that the Penn group leaders never underestimate her students' abilities. "It's a good partnership," she said. Reid -- who hopes to expand the program next year to involve more students and another nursing home -- noted that the hardest thing for the students is the "challenge to work with a person who has needs as well." But according to Green, her students rise to meet this challenge. Unlike the stereotypical teenager who are "into me, myself and I," these students demonstrate that they are "into sharing themselves," she said. "If you give them a chance to show they care, they'll surprise you," she added. One Shaw student who acts as eyes for his blind partner said he is learning how to communicate better as a result of his work at the home. After observing these kinds of interactions between her students and the elders, Green commented that some of them should look into geriatrics for possible job opportunities. "If this demonstrates what their potential is, then we're not looking too bad at all," she said. Nursing home resident Stanley Green, who participates in the program on both Tuesdays and Thursdays because he said the middle school students remind him of his own children, offered his own explanation for his enjoyment of the program. "I like kids. They're cool," he said.