Happy growing season!
Spring has made it to BEAUTIFUL status! It represents a welcome change in how we live — in Wisconsin. We are headed outdoors for as many hours as possible! We are enjoying beautiful busy days at Hope & A Future! Trees and perennials are blooming, the pool is being cleaned and garden work has begun! We have new raised beds in our fenced vegetable garden area. This will allow for more accessible gardening and keep some of our competitive creatures out! We definitely compete with our furry friends when it comes to who will get the garden goods! It is a joy to see our volunteers begin work. This year a lovely group of people from Wisconsin Food Forests who understand permaculture gardening have joined us. Permaculture is a learning adventure for most of us here. We hope to share more with you as we learn more about it.
We are also excited about an honor we received from Generations United (GU) this year! If you are not familiar with them, they have an international presence and have been around since 1986. Their website states:
The mission of Generations United is to improve the lives of children, youth, and older people through intergenerational collaboration, public policies, and programs for the enduring benefit of all.
Their strategic plan:
Generations United seeks to be the catalyst for and recognized leader of knowledge-based, intentional efforts to create a world that values and engages all generations.
Last year they advertised an application process for being considered for the designation of an intergenerational program of merit. After completing their application form, the applications go through a review process. Our congratulatory letter stated:
Congratulations! On behalf of Generations United, I am pleased to inform you that Hope & A Future III, Inc. has been selected to be named a Program of Merit. Your application went through a thorough review process to receive this honor. This designation is valid in perpetuity, provided Hope & A Future III, Inc. continues to work towards meeting the rigorous standards of effectiveness and sustainability in intergenerational programming.
Generations United’s Intergenerational Program Certification designations serve as the
U.S. benchmarks for intergenerational programs and are based on the criteria that underpin the effectiveness of High-quality intergenerational programs. Hope & A Future III, Inc. is in an elite class as a program recognized with a designation of this stature. . . .
We are very honored.
This honor is for the first phase of our project. In spite of Federal changes that affect our goals for moving forward, we continue to hope we can break ground to complete our neighborhood model in the not too distant future. Although we do not have a date that we can put a shovel in the ground, we hope it will be by spring of 2026. Our program model remains unique and cutting edge–in spite of the decades of work that have gone into planning it! In that time, I have seen neighborhoods that call themselves intergenerational that are actually multigenerational but without venues for interaction. They generally have a place for seniors to live, for young families to live and perhaps a nearby school or daycare. Yet most do not have areas committed to intergenerational interaction. There are rare models that do, but they remain the exception. Real intergenerational neighborhoods are meeting needs for older children in the foster system and veterans and their families. And they offer amazing support systems for vulnerable neighbors.
The buzz word for spaces designed to accommodate intergenerational needs is Intergenerational Contact Zones or ICZ’s. The wording came out of the book; Intergenerational Contact Zones, written by Matthew Kaplan, Leng Leng Thang, Mariano Sánchez, Jaco Hoffman. In their book they explore and give examples of place-based strategies for promoting social inclusion and belonging. They introduce novel ways of thinking about and designing spaces that encourage intergenerational interaction. Over the decades, Paula Reif (co-founder) and I have had the good fortune to talk with Matt Kaplan on multiple occasions about our ideas for an interactive neighborhood. He has been a great encouragement to us and we are grateful for his input and work at Penn. State University. Yet, research and writings about intergenerational work are still few and far between in this growing but young science.
As we make plans to build our complete model, we are talking with people at the University of Wisconsin that are interested in setting up a research project for our neighborhood approach. Hope & A Future staff have already seen results in the first phase of our project that indicate increased resilience for frail seniors, younger caregivers and their children. Our intergenerational program includes not only fun events and programs but also longer term relationships that include children coming to work with parents or living onsite with parents. We believe that long term relationships have a powerful impact on all age groups. We hope to measure impact over time in the next phase.
Our next phase of building will include Independent 55+ housing, workforce housing, affordable daycare for infants to pre-K and afterschool programs as well as affordable senior daycare. There will be indoor and outdoor ICZs. We will continue to have our beautiful Adult Family Home with live in staff–including an RN. Currently we have two RNs as Katie learns from Karin how to fill the intergenerational RN role. Training young people for leadership roles in intergenerational settings is an important part of our succession planning! As is the creation of a model with a long term goal for replication. We are proud to have a model that can provide for the needs of infants to hospice patients in an adaptable, vibrant, loving and interactive environment!
Spoiler alert! A little book is about to become available–with more of the story behind the creation of our model! Stay tuned for updates coming soon!
In the meantime, enjoy the sunshine with your intergenerational friends!