The relationship between St. Andrew Towers, a retirement facility for seniors in Coral Springs, and Building Generations, a nonprofit organization that works with low-income seniors and families, continues to grow.
With more and more seniors at the facility taking an interest in computers and the Internet, Building Generations has donated five rebuilt computers, four webcams and two new computer desks. The computer room has since seen plenty of activity from people who believe it is never too old to learn.
Joanne Vizzi, who has been a resident at the facility for almost a year, said she was excited by the opportunity to learn more about computers. “I use Facebook quite a lot. My husband had Alzhiemer’s Disease and died last year at 65. When he was sick, I was up nights looking after him. It was Facebook that kept me up at nights. I also like getting coupons online.”
“The computer is my best friend,” Vizzi said. “I want to learn how to use the webcam because I want to see my grandkids. My son lives in Georgia [and] my best friend lives in Vero Beach. It will be fun getting to see them.”
Eleanore Riccardi, who retired 10 years ago, hasn’t used a computer since then. “I want to get back on it. I am interested in historical stuff and I would like to do research on many topics. I also want to email my son in Tennessee, my daughter in Alabama and my cousin in New York.”
“We were responding to a need,” Tracy Ansonia, social worker at the facility. “We found that more and more of our residents are interested in surfing the net these days. A lot of them are on Facebook. Many of them have become hi-tech. The interest level is certainly high.”
Like most of its programs, Building Generations has incorporated an intergenerational element to this one as well. “As part of the arrangement that we have, high school students in the community will come once a month and provide computer classes to our residents,” Ansonia said. “We have many groups of residents and each group will get four classes each.”
The project was implemented using Federal grant money, said Andrew Winninger, neighborhood coalition builder at Building Generations. “We spent $2,000 on the project; the money came from Corporation for National and Community Service’s Best Neighborhoods Grant. We organized a financial literacy fair for 20 to 30 businesses earlier this year and also did an Earth Day project with the grant money.”
“We serve Coral Springs residents [and] we work with seniors, middle schoolers, high schoolers and others,” Winninger said. “We try to bring different generations together through our programs. Our mission is to build bridges among generations by establishing sustainable neighborhood coalitions. We are doing a few other things in the community, like the garden club we have at Hunt Elementary. We work with after-school kids there.”
“We have a nice partnership with Building Generations,” Ansonia said. “We are hoping it continues. They have done a lot of good things for us, like organizing cooking classes for our residents and helping with the garden area.”
