Generations are ‘Better Together’ at Dor Hadash
“There was a lot of laughter, and it was fun,” she said.
Karen Morris was excited when she first learned of the Better Together grant.
The national program — open to Jewish day schools, congregational schools, Hebrew high schools, youth groups, Jewish Community Centers and college programs like Hillels and Chabad houses — pairs teens or tweens with senior citizens to forge new connections.
“The goal,” Morris said, “is to bridge teens or middle school kids from your congregation with the older generation.”
Morris, the education director for Congregation Dor Hadash’s religious school, said that Dor Hadash doesn’t like the labels “senior citizen” or “older people.” Instead, the congregation uses the term “older generation,” which broadly means “empty nesters” or those who have retired.
The Better Together grant requires qualifying programs to pair teens with at least five older generation members. Morris first thought about reaching out to the Jewish Association on Aging but, as she considered the program’s goals, decided to keep Better Together in-house.
“There’s a bit of a l’dor v’dor feel to it,” Morris said.
The program requires a minimum of five adults, but Morris said the school set a goal of 10 for the first year, which it met. Dor Hadash’s Congregational Administrator Nicole Jenkins is the program’s coordinator, and Maria Carson, the Pittsburgh JCC’s director of Jewish education and arts, is the Better Together teacher.
Morris said the grant money is “generous,” and covers salaries for those running the program, as well as activities and even food.
Better Together is in its second year, or cohort, at Dor Hadash, and engages the school’s sixth, seventh and eighth graders.
The program takes place on Wednesdays, when the religious school meets. The curriculum is a combination of suggestions from the Better Together website and lessons and activities Carson creates.
“The goal is for the middle school kids to understand what it’s like to get older through a Jewish lens and with Jewish values,” Morris said. The activities are group-oriented, and the cohort meets a minimum of eight times during the year.
Activities have included baking hamantaschen, ice skating during Chanukah, a field trip to Carnegie Mellon University for the Violins of Hope exhibit and taking part in an education Shabbat. The group even went to see “Mean Girls.”
“That was fun,” Morris said, “because the older generation talked about going to school dances and meeting people. The kids found it really interesting.”
A centerpiece of the program, she said, is an essay contest. The students got together with the older generation, Morris and Carson, to write their essays. Dor Hadash awarded gift cards for essays in first, second and third place, and Better Together awarded a grant to pay half the tuition to summer camp for the best essay.
Carson said two memorable programs were a Tu B’Shvat seder, where the group painted rocks representing what they wanted to achieve in the new year of trees, and an exploration of Shabbat as a palace in time, as written about by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
While the program is national, Carson said, one of the nice things is that it is “congregation- focused.”
“How we do it is very Dor Hadash-focused,” she said. “It’s very much about middle schoolers at Dor Hadash meeting with the older generation of Dor Hadash and making them feel a buy-in and that we’re all part of the community together.”
Nancy Levine said she heard about the program through the congregation’s newsletter.
“It sounded like a really good idea,” she said. “I really like the idea of, you know, all the older adults and kids getting together.”
Levine said that before the Better Together program was brought to the congregation, there wasn’t a lot of interaction between the religious school students and the older generation, despite everyone recognizing one another.
Each of the activities the group has participated in was “unique and fun,” she said, including an origami project that no one could successfully navigate. And despite not completing the activity, Levine said there was a joy in the room.
“There was a lot of laughter, and it was fun,” she said. “We all felt stupid together.”
Hana Lang is a ninth grader who won the Better2Write essay contest last year, winning a $100 gift card and a grant to attend Emma Kaufmann Camp.
She said the experience was particularly meaningful for her and something the congregation should continue.
“I enjoyed talking to the older people because I don’t have any grandparents,” she said. “Unfortunately, they passed away before I could meet them. So, it was nice talking with another generation, which I hadn’t really interacted with.”
Morris encourages other Jewish organizations to take part in Better Together.
“The kids like it. They look forward to it,” she said. “One member in her 70s…a very active member, said, ‘I didn’t really know these people…but now I know the kids.’ We really feel like we’ve accomplished something.” PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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