At Parkside Senior Services in Des Plaines, some of the 180 children from the adjacent preschool day-care program take a frolic three times a week with the seniors. The children, with their spontaneity and unthwarted imagination, allow the elderly to practice the same.
”I don`t go in for the arts and crafts here,” said 71-year-old Veronica Mikol. Yet Mikol let herself be transformed into an artwork last Halloween when, she recalls with a laugh, ”The kids dressed me as a pumpkin.”
Such projects seem to help the seniors shed some burden-stepping faster, smiling broader and sitting straighter when the children march, scamper and amble into the main meeting room.
Sometimes, the activity is baking pies. Other times the seniors read the youngsters a favorite book. As one good turn deserves another, the kids sometimes do the reading.
Rosaria Calabrese related the easy give and take at one old-young tea party. The children concocted a curious brew from a variety of drinks.
”It looked just awful and the kids loved it when I made a face every time I drank some,” said the 68-year-old Calabrese.
In such activities, both generations delight in helping and being helped by the other. At Senior Services Associates in Elgin, where that adult day-care center periodically hosts children whose parents are providing for their education at home, the children and the elderly constructed a scarecrow for the Milk Pail Scarecrow Contest in Elgin.
”Our group entry won third prize,” boasted center director Jean White.
The center`s elderly also visit the Larsen Middle School in Elgin every other month for a luncheon and a concert by a school musical group.
