Elders program helps stretch the boundaries of friendship




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Elders program helps stretch the boundaries of friendship
Older Jewish women paired with minority fifth-graders

By Patricia Yollin, SFGate.com

January 3, 2004

Esther and Demetrius. Selma and Ashley. Hedy and Sacha. In the past few months, they have become the unlikeliest of friends.

Every Thursday afternoon, these old Jewish women and young minority students spend two hours together, eating kosher pizza and revealing lives that rarely cross paths. For the children, it's part of their fifth-grade curriculum. For the elders, it's an elective -- a break from the routines of their senior housing complex.

"We want to foster the connections between elders and the larger community," said Brent Nettle, executive director of Eldergivers, a nonprofit organization that created the 13-week program, which started in October and ends Jan. 22.

The Rhoda Goldman Plaza assisted-living facility, in San Francisco's Western Addition neighborhood, is only a block and a half from Benjamin Franklin Middle School, which houses the KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy, a charter school the fifth-graders attend. But when you throw in different races, religions and a seven-decade generation gap, the distance seems greater.

It is slowly dissolving.

Esther Felzer, 84, and Demetrius Reagans, 10, have determined they have at least one thing in common. "We're both afraid of dogs and cats," Demetrius said.

The activities room of the senior complex is the venue for such discoveries. A recent afternoon started out with a flurry of embraces, followed by gifts - illustrated "biography poems" - the 10 children made for their elders.
Ashley Robison's poem summed up her elder, Selma Epstein, as "caring, nice, educated, respectful."

"Lover of her children, me, and her family," Ashley wrote. "Who believes in me. Who wants the two of us to be friends, herself to be young, and to see her family more. ... Who says, "I missed you.' "

Epstein, a retired social worker, marveled at the laminated gift. "I'm so impressed," she said. "I remember myself in the fifth grade."

That was back in New Jersey, at Lakewood Elementary School. Now she's 87. Ashley, on the other hand, is only 10. Her great-grandmother died a year ago and she lost her grandmother last January. She didn't know any Jewish people until she began visiting Rhoda Goldman Plaza.

After the gift exchange, everyone sat in a circle and talked with Nettle about how to use their friendships to help the larger community. Pizza was consumed; orange juice and red fruit punch were spilled. After the rug was cleaned up, fifth-grade teacher Kate Shoemaker read a story. Then it was time to break into smaller groups to find out some basics -- like their first language, where their ancestors came from and when they arrived.

They wrote the information on leaves of different colors, the beginnings of a large "community tree" plastered to the wall. In the process, Sacha Scott learned that Hedy Krasnobrod's first language was German. And the Austrian- born Krasnobrod, 83, learned that Sacha is from a bilingual household and that her mother speaks Spanish.

The two already knew quite a bit about each other. Krasnobrod, who lived in the same house in the Richmond District for 45 years until she moved to the complex a year ago, says Sacha is gifted with language, cooks for her family - - two nights before, she made salmon and green peas -- and has a very good memory.

"I love this," Krasnobrod said. "It gives me so much. To be with a young person - and Sacha is a wonderful person. She communicates very well. It means a lot to me."

Sacha is 10, the same age as Krasnobrod's grandson, a resident of Bishop in the eastern Sierra. He sees his grandmother once or twice a year.
At the beginning of the program, some students were nervous. "I didn't like talking to people," said Brianna Levexier, 11. "Now, I do."

Others were excited and haven't been disappointed. "It's not every day kids get to go to an old people's home -- especially people of another religion," 11-year-old Kamille Kimble pointed out.

Her classmate, Demetrius Reagans, said, "Some of them don't get visited a lot."

His mother, in a phone interview, said Demetrius always had a soft spot for the elderly and would talk about how lonely they sometimes looked.
"He really enjoys the visits. It's something really important to him," Shelly Yoakum said. "I wish other schools would do this. I tell my kids, 'Don't ever put me in a senior citizens' home.' "

The sessions also have made Demetrius -- a mix of African American, Cherokee, French, Portuguese and Spanish -- curious about his own family history.
That's not uncommon, said program director Nettle. Although Eldergivers has existed since 1985, the A+ program, as it's called, began two years ago, with the French American International School - where 72 second-graders still visit elders at four senior sites.

"It's important for the emotional needs of the kids," Nettle said. "There isn't enough emotional maturity, and friendship is a wonderful way to get it. And old people are marginalized in this society. After a while, they think of themselves as less worthwhile. And then they withdraw further."