JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
As more young people leave rural America, many communities there are aging. That can mean increased social isolation for older adults who stay, so one small town in Kansas is testing a new strategy for boosting quality of life across generations. Rose Conlon of member station KMUW has the story.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Yelling, inaudible).
ROSE CONLON, BYLINE: The Logan Manor doesn't sound like your typical nursing home. That's because it's also a school. The town of Logan, with a population of less than 500, recently welcomed nursing home residents and students into its new intergenerational facility called The Life Center. By bringing different age groups together under the same roof, administrators hope to foster connection and learning across generations.
HARPER: Betty, are you doing a staring contest (laughter)?
CONLON: Inside, Betty Albright, age 90, is making May Day baskets with three of her friends - Jensen, who's 12, Harper and Harper, who are both 11.
HARPER: Betty, are we ornery?
BETTY ALBRIGHT: Yeah.
JENSEN: No, we aren't.
ALBRIGHT: You are.
HARPER: You're ornery.
ALBRIGHT: (Laughter).
I have a good time with those three. I always do because...
HARPER: Do you want to sit with us next time, too?
ALBRIGHT: ...I love them very much.
CONLON: The setup lets nursing home residents volunteer in classrooms and help with science projects, and it provides learning opportunities for kids. One class is interviewing residents and recording their life stories. High schoolers can job shadow physical therapists and speech language pathologists.
RHETT: Llama llama feels so new.
TOM GOSCHA: Right.
CONLON: Down the hall, 6-year-old Rhett is practicing his reading with 63-year-old Tom Goscha.
RHETT: Building a castle out of blocks. Making a rock from blocks.
GOSCHA: A rock...
RHETT: Box.
GOSCHA: A rock...
RHETT: From a box.
GOSCHA: There you go.
CONLON: Goscha has pulmonary fibrosis, and he's lived in the nursing home for five years. He's a favorite among the kids.
GOSCHA: My nieces and nephews are all grown and gone. And they've got kids of their own, but they're in Imperial, Nebraska, Texas and Omaha, so it's fun to have the little ones around.
CONLON: Seven-year-old Rowan says Tom is always willing to discuss one really important topic.
ROWAN: I just like talking to him because he always wants to know about dinosaurs. There's a new dinosaur that I got called a saichania, so, like, whenever he roars, he goes (imitating dinosaur).
CONLON: The Life Center is the brainchild of school principal David Kirkendall. He says not everyone was initially on board.
DAVID KIRKENDALL: I've had some people express concern about if this is taking away from the classroom learning.
CONLON: But he says having the residents around actually adds to kids' learning.
KIRKENDALL: For example, I have a kindergarten grandson, and he can read at the fourth-grade level. He can read to a resident at the fourth-grade level while the teacher's working with some other students on primary reading aspects.
CONLON: He thinks Logan could be a model for other communities trying to improve wellbeing. Teresa McComb, the nursing home's administrator, says she's already seen benefits in the 36 adults who live here.
TERESA MCCOMB: Even residents that are unable to verbalize how much they like the kids coming over, their faces light up, they smile. They're just in better moods.
CONLON: The National Council on Aging and other researchers say social contact associated with intergenerational programming can improve mental health in older adults. And Shannon Jarrott, a social work professor at Ohio State University, says children also have a lot to gain.
SHANNON JARROTT: It builds knowledge about aging, it builds empathy about older adults, and it can have a positive impact on how these young people experience and head into old age themselves. And we know that adolescents have as high or higher levels of loneliness as older people do.
CONLON: There are also challenges, like how to keep residents safe during flu season and how to maintain relationships over summer break. Administrators say they're more than willing to sort out those details to keep a program so beneficial to young students and the elderly going. For NPR News, I'm Rose Conlon in Logan, Kansas. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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