I love everything about this story, which I think illustrates the benefits of having a local newspaper. Who doesn’t like to see a picture of smiling high-school kids first thing in the morning? You wouldn’t see this on the front page of a major metropolitan newspaper, that’s for sure. These are Lafayette High School students at the Virginia state conference of Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), a national organization with 4,900 chapters across the country that focuses on family and consumer sciences education.
This small chapter (fewer than 10 participating students), is partnered with Dominion Village of Williamsburg – a senior living community less than a mile from the school. This group of students began visiting Dominion Village in November of 2022. During this pre-Christmas visit the students read books to the residents and sang carols with them, along with making cards and decoration ornaments to leave with the residents.
Residents look forward to seeing the students each month, and they know them by name. They play bingo and do crafts together during their visits. Residents enjoy talking with the kids, often sharing stories about their lives. The group’s sponsor, Lafayette teacher Roberta Lanham, wasn’t surprised that her students took home a prize from the convention. She says they put in a lot of work throughout the year – meeting for four hours every week and taking local field trips. They even filmed a commercial to encourage other students to give back to their community. Lanham says the group will continue to visit Dominion Village next year, and she hopes that other school groups will do the same. She says she would like the residents to have weekly visitors.
I like the fact that the students (and their teacher) are making a virtue of the fact that this area is the home of a population of retirees that is older than the average age in other communities. Young adults who live here often are frustrated by the lack of activities for people their age. These students are undoubtedly frustrated as well – but these students have figured out a way to make the retired population part of their lives, and I think that’s critically important.
We used to attend Williamsburg United Methodist Church, and they were able to foster connections like this through two of their church programs. The church runs a daily respite care program – a program for disabled adults (mostly with some sort of dementia), established to give their caregivers a break – and it also runs a preschool program called Kids Morning Out. These programs live at opposite ends of the church’s basement-level hallway, and the KMO organizers occasionally take their charges to visit the clients of Respite Care. The kids love to visit with the older folks, and the older folks are just delighted with the antics of the kids. It’s a win-win situation.
I also included the smaller picture above the masthead to remind us that we are still in Williamsburg. It’s a picture of the Williamsburg Fife and Drum Corps, and the article on an inside page of the paper explains that this weekend will feature Colonial Williamsburg’s annual showcase of Military music. Called “Drummer’s Call,” this event starts off with “Successful Campaign,” an evening of traditional patriotic military much performed by the colonial Williamsburg Fifes & Drums Senior Corps and the Grand Republic Fife and Drum Corps, an 1890s-era corps based in Framingham, Massachusetts. The performance is scheduled for 7:30 pm on Palace Green.
On Saturday at 12:30 pm, Colonial Williamsburg’s Fifes & Drums will lead visiting crops from around the country in a Grand March and Review from the Capitol down Duke of Gloucester Street to Market Square. The musicians will then gather behind the Courthouse on Market Square, where each group will perform. The event will conclude with the Williamsburg Military Tattoo, a torch-lit march down Duke of Gloucester Street at 8:30 pm on Saturday.
This story connects to the earlier story about the Lafayette High School students; the Colonial Fifes & Drums, which was founded in 1958, consists of young folks ages 10-18 who live in the community.
Too much of what we see on the news about kids focuses on their problems – either their shutdown-driven “failure” or their involvement in drugs or violence – and we don’t see them living their everyday lives. Just anecdotally, we have friends whose kids held down paying jobs at a different local senior community; both kids (now in college) are pursuing careers related to elder care. The kids are all right.
You’re bursting my bubble 🤣
Yes. I appreciate your explaining the difference between creative non fiction and historical fiction. Was wondering about that.