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blog
Intergenerational Connections: Portola Chapter’s Collaboration with Angel Cards and Easterseals
By Amelia Wang, Portola Chapter Chair
A Riley’s Way Chapter brings together a group of young changemakers within a high school with the goal of tackling a social justice issue in collaboration with a community-based partner, all through the lens of kindness and empathy. The Portola Chapter was founded in August of 2023 and focuses on fostering relationships between teenagers and older adults through intergenerational activities.
In the latter half of the 2023-2024 school year, the Portola Chapter (also known as the Senior Squad), partnered with the Angel Cards Program to deliver 15 handmade cards to seniors living at the MPTF Wasserman retirement community. The Angel Cards Program is designed to brighten birthdays and holidays for seniors, whose reduced mobility and smaller circle of friends can make feelings of belonging and joy more challenging.
This collaboration was the Portola Chapter’s first major project, and it began with a series of email exchanges with the director of the Angel Cards, Holly Spiegel. One week later, Riley’s Way had generously provided the funds for the Chapter to obtain necessary materials for the birthday cards, including envelopes, markers, stickers, and other decorations.
On April 23rd, Portola Chapter members worked hard during the biweekly club meeting to hand make 15 beautiful, personal, and positive birthday cards for seniors with birthdays in May. Chapter members had a blast designing these cards and writing empathetic and kind notes in each one, tailoring our messages to each senior’s interests. The completed cards were then shipped to the Wasserman retirement community and individually distributed to the seniors on their birthdays. This collaboration with the Angel Cards Program was an incredibly meaningful experience for all of Portola Chapter’s members as it gave them a chance to practice empathy and compassion and was even featured in an article in Forbes.
In addition to the Angel Cards Program, the Portola Chapter has also partnered with Easterseals , a nonprofit that aims to help individuals with acute or chronic conditions by offering services such as medical rehabilitation and transportation services while keeping loved ones integrated in their communities. The purpose of the collaboration was to provide biweekly virtual interviews where seniors were able to share their life stories and lessons learnt with the younger generation.
Thirteen interviews were conducted over the span of a month, and each interview was informative, intriguing, and mind-opening. One such interview was with Mack and Mickey, an old couple who lived through the Vietnam War. They brought an incredibly inspiring story to the table, one of recovering lost memories after surviving a bullet through the brain and caring for a quadriplegic for over a decade. Their advice of “take it easy, take it slow, and follow the golden rule” can be universally applied and serves as a great reminder to today’s teens, who often feel as though life is moving too fast to truly enjoy anything.
Despite the inevitable technical difficulties and the hefty turnaround time required for consent forms to be signed, the challenges to successfully collaborate with Easterseals were nothing in comparison to the timeless knowledge gained in return. For the next school year, the Portola Chapter will be partnering with both organizations again to deepen connections with the seniors met through this year’s collaborations.
