Delta’s seniors are feeling a little less lonely through COVID-19 restrictions thanks to the efforts of Tsawwassen teachers and students.
According to HealthLinkBC, self-isolation can be particularly challenging for our senior citizens. Feelings of loneliness, isolation and depression have been the sad reality for many living in care homes throughout this pandemic. While social distancing is mandated, both Delta students and teachers have worked to fight back against social isolation by taking the time to engage the population most vulnerable to the virus through an age-old invention – handwritten letters.
Since the pandemic began Tsawwassen elementary school teachers like Kristin Visscher and Joanne Calder have coordinated with care homes and had their students write to the residents.
Kristin Visscher, who used to work at Beach Grove Elementary, organized a program with her Grade 6 class where the students would educate seniors at Kin Village with technology and in turn the students would learn skills like knitting, woodworking or chess.
Through the program blossomed beautiful intergenerational friendships that were cut short in March with the first wave of COVID-19.
It was then Visscher decided to use this moment of hardship as a teaching opportunity to show her students how to write a letter, something many had never done before.
After a brief quarantine, 25 letters were sent to the care home and a few weeks later replies started making their way to the overjoyed students.
Joanne Calder currently teaches at Beach Grove Elementary and says her students are hard at work creating handwritten Christmas cards for seniors living in Tsawwassen’s Waterford Care Centre.
Calder’s class is also testing the senior’s memories, asking them historical questions about their community inspired by field trips coordinated by Calder.
Calder started the walks down memory lane after seeing pictures posted on the Tsawwassen Old Photos Facebook page. Whenever Calder would see an interesting photograph near the school she and her students would walk there and imagine what it was like decades before the students were born.
"I think focusing on this gives a real level of respect for the people who have created what we now have,” Calder said. "I see a lot of kids who are missing their grandparents who aren't seeing them in person and are realizing how important that older generation is and how we really need to value and protect them."
High school students have also hopped on the letter-writing train. Teens for Tekera co-president Niamh Robinson is a Grade 12 student at SDSS. The group was formed to support a sister school in Tekera, Uganda but since it recently became self-sufficient, the group has turned their efforts to the community.
The Grade 10 and 12 students wrote 17 letters which were recently dropped off to Kin Village where they stayed unopened for a three-day quarantine period before being delivered to the residents. Robinson and a few others wrote two letters, she says they are generic for now, describing the student's life, their activities, passions, hobbies and plans for the future.
Robinson added that when the seniors write back the students will be notified and will start a more one on one correspondence with individual residents.
Bettina Salini director of wellness at Kin Village spoke to the aim of the initiative taken by the students.
“The goal of this program is to connect students with residents and build a connection that might end in friendship or not but definitely will emotionally support each other while we go through this pandemic,” Salini said.Delta’s seniors are feeling a little less lonely through COVID-19 restrictions thanks to the efforts of Tsawwassen teachers and students.
According to HealthLinkBC, self-isolation can be particularly challenging for our senior citizens. Feelings of loneliness, isolation and depression have been the sad reality for many living in care homes throughout this pandemic. While social distancing is mandated, both Delta students and teachers have worked to fight back against social isolation by taking the time to engage the population most vulnerable to the virus through an age-old invention – handwritten letters.
Since the pandemic began Tsawwassen elementary school teachers like Kristin Visscher and Joanne Calder have coordinated with care homes and had their students write to the residents.
Kristin Visscher, who used to work at Beach Grove Elementary, organized a program with her Grade 6 class where the students would educate seniors at Kin Village with technology and in turn the students would learn skills like knitting, woodworking or chess.
Through the program blossomed beautiful intergenerational friendships that were cut short in March with the first wave of COVID-19.
It was then Visscher decided to use this moment of hardship as a teaching opportunity to show her students how to write a letter, something many had never done before.
After a brief quarantine, 25 letters were sent to the care home and a few weeks later replies started making their way to the overjoyed students.
Joanne Calder currently teaches at Beach Grove Elementary and says her students are hard at work creating handwritten Christmas cards for seniors living in Tsawwassen’s Waterford Care Centre.
Calder’s class is also testing the senior’s memories, asking them historical questions about their community inspired by field trips coordinated by Calder.
Calder started the walks down memory lane after seeing pictures posted on the Tsawwassen Old Photos Facebook page. Whenever Calder would see an interesting photograph near the school she and her students would walk there and imagine what it was like decades before the students were born.
"I think focusing on this gives a real level of respect for the people who have created what we now have,” Calder said. "I see a lot of kids who are missing their grandparents who aren't seeing them in person and are realizing how important that older generation is and how we really need to value and protect them."
High school students have also hopped on the letter-writing train. Teens for Tekera co-president Niamh Robinson is a Grade 12 student at SDSS. The group was formed to support a sister school in Tekera, Uganda but since it recently became self-sufficient, the group has turned their efforts to the community.
The Grade 10 and 12 students wrote 17 letters which were recently dropped off to Kin Village where they stayed unopened for a three-day quarantine period before being delivered to the residents. Robinson and a few others wrote two letters, she says they are generic for now, describing the student's life, their activities, passions, hobbies and plans for the future.
Robinson added that when the seniors write back the students will be notified and will start a more one on one correspondence with individual residents.
Bettina Salini director of wellness at Kin Village spoke to the aim of the initiative taken by the students.
“The goal of this program is to connect students with residents and build a connection that might end in friendship or not but definitely will emotionally support each other while we go through this pandemic,” Salini said.
