Our generation has found itself rethinking its relationship with the past: as high schoolers enter their college years, we are faced with the conflict between holding onto our family and moving on with life. In the midst of this, we often don’t look at life from the perspective of our senior citizens; however, Seven Lakes’ Students for Senior Citizens hopes to fix that. The club aims to foster meaningful relationships between students and senior citizens in the community. 

“The goal of the club is to connect highschoolers and senior citizens in the community in order to eliminate senior loneliness and depression,” senior and club vice president Meghana Kotta said. 

The club fulfills this goal through various activities that all aim to engage with local senior citizen communities by helping them out with tasks, volunteering at senior-citizen-focused organizations, or even just trying to make a senior citizen happier in some way.

 “We volunteer at our local senior centers, interacting with senior citizens and helping them with menial tasks,” Kotta said. “We’ve participated in events sponsored by the Fussell senior center where we helped set up chairs and tables before the event, enthusiastically engaged with the senior citizens during the event, and helped clean and organize the equipment after the event. We also had our members come together during the winter holidays to write well-wishing cards for senior citizens and then distribute them to several senior centers.”

The club–initially a chapter of the non-profit Conversations to Remember (C2R)–was founded in 2022 by the current president Shivani Gotur, who had previously volunteered with the organization. However, it had to be disbanded as a C2R chapter due to policy reasons.

“Due to a policy change in C2R which forbade students under 17 to volunteer, our chapter had no choice but to disband,” Kotta said. “Hence, in 2023, we re-established ourselves as an individual club, serving the same purpose of connecting high schoolers and senior citizens.”

People who seek out experiences with the elderly, or who just want to help the local community in some way, are encouraged to join the club. 

“Our club serves as a bridge to connect students who don’t have the opportunity to interact with their grandparents with grandparents who don’t have the opportunity to interact with their grandchildren,” Kotta said. “Our club has planned unique and creative activities like the Happy Jar, the holiday card-making social, and gardening to both enjoy fun activities as a club and also to support senior citizens in any way we can.”

Indeed, there are so many positive experiences that can be derived by students from engaging with senior citizens and maintaining a connection with one’s roots. It’s a great way to develop wisdom, a sense of community, and even humility.

“I think [connecting with senior citizens] is important because senior citizens have the most experience in life, and I feel like we could take a lot of good advice from them,” club historian Eva Wei said. “It can help us grow and connect better with our community.” 

All in all, it’s worth realizing that interactions such as those facilitated by the club can have mutual benefits for both senior citizens and high school students; however, there is altruistic and emotional value in participating in such activities as well. 

“At the end of day, the senior citizens’ funny stories and experiences always leave our members with a smile on their face,” Kotta said.