MARBLEHEAD — The Council on Aging held its first Winter Olympics last Friday with an assist from the high school’s Students & Seniors Club.
Roughly 30 seniors and 15 students played chair volleyball, indoor curling, corn hole and basketball shootout games in three teams during the Winter Olympics. The event was a way to compete in various games that were accessible to everyone.
Students & Seniors Club was founded two years ago by juniors Sydney Berman, Sadie Halpern and Maren Rowe in hopes of creating intergenerational camaraderie and friendships.
“We’re here usually once or twice a month, so we see the same faces over and over again, which has been great. We’ve gotten to know a lot of them. I just found out one of them is my neighbor,” Sydney said, laughing. “It’s been really nice to form connections with the seniors. We love it.”
For Don Wilinski, the feeling is mutual. “I really enjoy the high school students coming in and participating with us here,” he said. “Every senior I know in this organization really looks forward to the days that these folks are coming in because it really rejuvenates our lives from the present to how our lives used to be, say back 20 and 30 years ago.”
The Students & Seniors Club typically visits the Council on Aging members twice a month for about 45 minutes, but Maren said the “Winter Olympics” was a chance to spend some extra quality time with the seniors since it was a three-hour block that ran from 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
Sydney added that most of the high school students had never been inside the Judy and Gene Jacobi Community Center, which is where the Council on Aging meets for events like this, and that they originally had a much different perception of what the Marblehead seniors would be like.
Janice Salisbury-Beal, Council on Aging program director, emphasized that these seniors are far from the mainstream perception of older people.
“It’s amazing because, you know, you think of seniors, and you think, ‘Oh, they sit around. They don’t do anything.’ And they think we’re like a daycare center,” she said. “We’re nothing like a daycare center. Our activities are huge, and it’s all focused on healthy living.”
