Project Title: The Generation Connection
BASIS Advisor: Ms. Yearling
Internship Location: Los Altos United Methodist Church
Onsite Mentor: Ms. Carol Damonte
Loneliness can be a major problem for senior citizens. I have identified a solution that not only helps seniors mitigate this loneliness, but also may assist young people in finding affordable housing in the Bay Area. Seniors and younger people living together is an excellent way to both alleviate loneliness in seniors and balance affordable housing problems for young people moving to the Bay Area. Through the Los Altos United Methodist Church, I intend to conduct research on this relationship by interviewing people who have participated in a living arrangement such as this. I intend to answer questions such as how the pairing benefited both parties and how they came into contact with each other. After about a month of data collection I will make it into a book, with pictures of the families sharing their story and presenting my overall research on the subject.
My Posts
Week 10: Back in the Groove
Apr 29, 2019
This week I really got back in the groove after taking a vacation. I spent a lot of time deconstructing my interviews into a format that can be presented. I have been writing a piece that can summarize my finding and express the overall improvements my interviewees have felt from their living arrangements. This week […]
Week 9: Presentation Work
Apr 22, 2019
If you read my last blog I spent a week In France to visit family. So I was pretty busy this week and wasn’t able to spend any time on my project until late Thursday and Friday. However, after scheduling my practice presentation times I decided to start to put all the interviews and the […]
Week 8: Los Altos Home Sharing
Apr 10, 2019
I spent a lot of time this week researching this town project that was shared with me. The project group is called Affordable Housing Working Group. This group actually scheduled a panel discussion with the towns people. Unfortunately I had scheduled a college visit to Cal Poly weeks before I found out the date of […]
Week 7: A Different Interview
Apr 07, 2019
All of the interviews I have been doing have been from the perspective of the seniors sharing their homes with younger people. I have not been able to connect with a person in need of housing, moving in to a senior’s home: until now. I had the opportunity to speak with with a local middle […]
Week 6: Second Interview
Mar 31, 2019
I had a really exciting week because I was able to have lunch with Mrs. Coltman, a retired social worker, who used to share her home with international college graduates from Europe back in the late 1980s. Mrs. Coltman’s husband unfortunately past away in 1974, leaving Mrs. Coltman to raise her two children by herself. […]
Week 5: Thinking Differently
Mar 24, 2019
I realized this week that all my research and work has been done from the perspective of the the people sharing their homes. I decided to spend a week of research for young adults moving into those homes. I starting asking the previous interviewees if I could get in contact with the people they share […]
Week 4: Branching out
Mar 21, 2019
Week 4 was a mixture of research and branching out with my project. Through my research, my experiences with older adults, and time just brainstorming everything that I have learned, it is clear that lack of awareness is one of the major problems with addressing loneliness in the over 65 population. Loneliness is an epidemic […]
Week 3: Additional Research
Mar 20, 2019
This week was dedicated to learning all about how loneliness affects the elderly. This research is important because it will help me form questions for my interviews. I learned that according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 11 million people age 65 or older are living alone. That is about 29% of the total population age […]
Week 2: Nesterly
Mar 01, 2019
This week was Ski week so I spent most of the week up in Tahoe. I brought my research book along with me to read however, it was difficult to find the time. Since we left Wednesday Morning I was able to work the first two days on research. Most of it was spent reading […]
Week 1: Research and First interview
Feb 27, 2019
In my project I am trying to research on benefits of the relationship between seniors and younger people living together. So when I find a pair living in these circumstances I am sure to jump on the opportunity and ask to speak to them about their relationship. After a church service, I happened to stumble-upon […]