Norma (age 71) and Artwork Menard (age 73) are 47-year married couple; each are polyglot educators with a ardour for neighborhood constructing. Earlier than retirement, Artwork taught 7th and eightth grade math whereas Norma labored her approach up from volunteer to Director of the Literacy Volunteers of Clinton County.
And now, they’re two of the primary folks to participate in Senior Planet’s licensing program. Senior Planet licensing construction works with community-based organizations to develop native trainers to ship Senior Planet’s proprietary curriculum and produce Senior Planet’s world-class applications to older adults of their space.
We spoke with Norma and Artwork about how they aren’t solely delivering free tech lessons – they’re re-building their rural neighborhood after a troublesome and isolating interval of historical past.
You each clearly have a ardour for training. The place does that come from?
Norma: I grew up within the Philippines and our household didn’t have something. Schooling was thought-about a approach out of poverty. My mother and father had been captivated with it– 4 of the 5 of us siblings had been capable of attend school.
Senior Planet has helped us to work within the course of the dream that we have now for the neighborhood.
Artwork: It’s a worth that we’ve seen via our personal private expertise. And it’s attention-grabbing I feel how our households paralleled. My mother and father are each French Canadian and had minimal training. My mom stayed dwelling as a result of she had 13 kids and my father was a carpenter that labored for mainly minimal wage his entire life.
How did you find yourself bringing Senior Planet to your native library?
Artwork: When our native library, the Mooers Free Library, misplaced its Government Director for the second time in two months, Norma and two different girls mentioned they might work on the directorship if it was not full-time. So, the library employed three co-directors!
Norma and I had been acquainted with Senior Planet and had spent two years of COVID taking on-line lessons. We noticed firsthand how a lot it had helped. Like what I had discovered with Zoom! My 83 year-old brother had three coronary heart surgical procedures and I used to be capable of get him on Zoom to satisfy along with his physician.
In January of this yr, Norma noticed the e-mail that Senior Planet was occupied with transferring into native libraries. And it took her all of ten seconds to say “sure, we’ll do it.”
It’s not all about expertise, however about how expertise can be utilized to enhance the standard of our lives.
Norma: Our library was in search of a program that will draw the Senior inhabitants and I mentioned that is it. The curriculum is there, the chance is right here.
What do you suppose the Senior Planet Licensing Packages can provide a neighborhood like yours?
Artwork: I feel Senior Planet has actually helped us to work within the course of the dream that we have now for the neighborhood. We’re very rural – there’s no public transportation and the winters are very lengthy. The expertise that Senior Planet can carry to Seniors is so essential to such a location as a result of it removes numerous the isolation.
That’s a part of the dream. The opposite a part of the dream is that it will get seniors into the library. And the library, like a public college, is a spot of neighborhood gathering and satisfaction. We’re hoping that the library can be that place for seniors.
Norma: Now that we have now Senior Planet as a core program, I wrote a mini grant from the Workplace of Growing old in Clinton County for a program we’re calling “Expertise, Espresso and Conversations” as an extension of the expertise course. Now persons are asking for a visitor family tree speaker and for a gardening membership – we hear what folks need as a result of they’re bodily right here and speaking with one another.
Senior Planet for us is all about referring to different adults and sharing this chance to study. It’s not all about expertise, however about how expertise can be utilized to enhance the standard of our lives.
Curiosity in bringing Senior Planet programming to your neighborhood? Click on right here to study extra concerning the Senior Planet Licensing Program.
Pam Hugi is Senior Planet’s Group and Advocacy Supervisor. Primarily based in Brooklyn, she runs Senior Planet’s Supporter program along with being a contributing author for this web site. She may be reached at [email protected].