Brick Students, Seniors Find There's Much to Learn from Each Other

“Do you need help with that?” Roy Harvey asked as he watched twins Robert and Joseph Manzo cutting out the hands they’d traced on green construction paper. Next to him, Jared Reilly was cutting out stockings traced on red paper.

The boys shook their heads and kept cutting, carefully rounding the fingertips as they worked on their contributions to a handprint wreath that was under construction for the office at Veterans Memorial Middle School in Brick.

“This is just our second meeting, but we like it,” said Harvey, referring to himself and Joe Maffuci, who were at the school to participate in the Intergenerational Club. “It gives a chance for kids to see we’re interested in them.”

The Intergenerational Club at VMMS has been in existence since 1994, providing a way for students and seniors to interact and learn from each other. The brainchild of Rosemary Heckendorn, now a guidance counselor at the school, the club has become so popular that the students must fill out an application – including writing an essay – to be chosen. Nearly 70 applied this school year, said Catherine Essner, the club’s adviser, and 30 were accepted. The club also includes members of one of the school's autistic classes. Approximately 70 seniors rotate in and out of the club from month to month, she said.

“I saw the seniors in the community as a resource for our students,” Heckendorn said. “They have life experience.”

They also have skills that have fallen by the wayside in our technology-driven society, she said.

“Today a lot of kids are lacking in social skills,” Heckendorn said, because they spend most of their time texting each other or communicating over the computer.

“With the seniors, they learn eye contact and how to hold a conversation face to face,” she said.

They also hear about what life was like when the seniors were their age.

“It’s really amazing,” said Joseph Manzo, a seventh-grader who’s in the club for the second year in a row. “When my grandpa used to come, he used to tell stories about the Vietnam War, things he did when he was in it.”

“They don’t do the things we used to do,” said Don Mundy, who attended with his wife, Joan. “They don’t play marbles, they don’t hunt, they don’t fish. It’s surprising to me.”

Many of the seniors are grandparents of the students in the club. Barbara Tuzio, who was attending for the first time, joined the group because of her granddaughter, Kaitlyn.

“It’s wonderful to see the children in their school,” she said.

Seated at the same table, program veteran Mary Ellen Schmidt smiled as her granddaughters, Bonnie and Kaitlyn Barrett, talked about how they’ve learned things from the seniors.

“This is our fourth year,” said Sherri Barrett, the girls’ mother, who provides her mother the transportation to participate. “My oldest daughter was in the program; she’s in high school now.”

Some of the seniors who participate have no grandchildren in the program. That’s true of Adele Clark, Joyce Keefe and Lydia Bayard, the matriarchs of the club, who’ve been coming since its inception.

“I enjoy it,” said Bayard, who’s recruited other seniors from Greenbriar, where she lives, for the club. “I don’t have grandchildren here – mine are all grown up – so these kids take the place of them.”

“You hear so many stories about the bad kids but never enough about the good ones,” Clark said. “There are a lot of good kids.”

The club, which meets monthly, has a wide range of activities, from the Thanksgiving feast that brought the students and seniors together on Wednesday, to trips that have included destinations such as the Vietnam War memorial in Holmdel and the Algonquin Theater in Manasquan.

"It's nice for the kids to see what the seniors are like," Essner said. "They get to see that they're not sitting at home in rocking chairs.

"One of my favorite memories is one of our trips to Ikko (a Japanese hibachi-style restaurant in Brick)," she said. "While we were waiting, one of the seniors pulled up in a yellow Corvette, and the kids were all wowed by it. 'I'm not dead yet,' she told them."

The program is so popular that students who came through Veterans Middle School started a similar club at Brick Memorial High School, Heckendorn said. And a teacher at Lanes Mill Elementary School was inspired to start one as well.

“We really enjoy it and wish we had more time with them,” Keefe said. “Three hours a month just isn’t enough.”

It may not be enough, but it is very special to all of them. And for Jared Reilly, sharing the Thanksgiving feast with his grandfather – Harvey – and his great-grandfather – Maffucci – was priceless.

“This is the only time I really get to see him,” Reilly said, referring to his great-grandfather. “It’s nice.”