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Intergenerational voices sharing stories and tips for how to connect in our evolving new world

Dara Cohen: The Jewish Museum Partnership

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Sweet Readers at the Jewish Museum

Back in May, 2011, Dara and I were invited to MoMA to a symposium centered on engaging people living with Alzheimer's in the arts.  Sweet Readers has just completed its first pilot at the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) and the Jewish Museum was planning its first program to bring people living with Alzheimer's or some form of dementia into the museum after hours with their care partners to enjoy a facilitated experience with the various works.  It was an exciting time and groundbreaking in many … [Read more...]

The Power to Bridge Communities – A Sweet Reader’s Perspective

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Karen Young

This past month I had the pleasure of watching our first Spanish Sweet Readers program come to life.  7th and 8th graders from De La Salle Academy in Manhattan made almost immediate connections with older adults at the Tejano Center in Houston.  The creation of these bridged communities - already connecting like old friends, was the collaborative work of many people in both communities.  Teachers, administrators, aides, students, older adults, friends and colleagues came together in beautiful … [Read more...]

The Gift of Being Present

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Karen Young

Present.  What an interesting multiple meaning word.  The pandemic has pushed us to be present, regardless of our circumstances.  This is a gift! It can be so easy to mind wander, to stand in the presence of another and be miles away, distracted by our own ruminations. Ironically, during these pandemic times, many of us have been forced to keep physical distance from the people in our lives we care most about.  This has been particularly agonizing for people with loved ones in need or on … [Read more...]

Where is your place?

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"Oh, the places you’ll go!" – Dr. Seuss What exactly does place mean for each of us now? Where is your place in this evolving world? Finding your place, by definition, is being a part of something.  Like your place at the table, or each piece in a place setting or on a chess board, intentionally positioned in relation to the others.  To find your place in the world, it helps to first know yourself and then recognize the world and the people and places around you. Nearly 20 years ago, my yoga … [Read more...]

Passages

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As we enter the month of June, a month known for marriages and graduations, celebrations and rites of passage, as cities start to reopen, with people struggling to find work, reconnect safely, feed their families, see their loved ones, mourn humanely and protect the most vulnerable – their health and human rights, it’s an important time for us to consider our passages through life and this pandemic in particular. I have two stories to share with you today:  my own and my daughter (and Sweet … [Read more...]

Passages: Isabella

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Isabella

Today we celebrate Isabella as she prepares to graduate from the Nightingale-Bamford School and move on to Yale when the school year starts. A beacon for her generation and a beloved and dedicated Sweet Reader and Young Leader, Isabella will be sorely missed.  Please join me in celebration of Isabella’s important rite of passage and be inspired by some of her beautiful impact over the years. Isabella first came to my attention when she volunteered to be a 7thgrade Sweet Reader. From her … [Read more...]

Protection as a Positive Tool.

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Georgia, Deb, Sarah, Amy

So many words have expanded meaning during a pandemic.  Even the word pandemic itself, once associated with something far off, either from a movie or the distant past, before the vast majority of us were even alive, suddenly became present and very real. During Memorial Day weekend, when we honor those who have died in military service, protecting our nation, let’s consider the word protection.  As we’ve known it in the past, protection was associated with armour, military, guns, walls, … [Read more...]

Make Time to Play!

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Play is a tool you can use to find and free yourself, see others more fully and enjoy this one precious life, especially during the most challenging of times. Today I’m sharing some of the ways play has impacted my life with the hope you might find some inspiration for your own forms of play. I came into the world the 5th child, 7th in my family and play, from the start, was a big part of life.  Competitive Monopoly (my brother Andrew was always the banker), chess, backgammon…ping pong in … [Read more...]

Motherhood

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Dorothy, Karen & Sophie

Motherhood is dear to my heart and Mother's Day has become my favorite holiday because I get to celebrate the two people who have had the most profound impact on my life and a growing community of remarkable moms, a circle of sisterhood both within and without the Sweet Readers Communities. Because it's late in the day and this may get a bit windy, I'll start with that sisterhood of moms and end with those two powerhouses who have fueled my greatest joys and life lessons. As you may know, … [Read more...]

Welcome to our new blog and this week’s theme: The Power of Poetry!

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At Sweet Readers, we train middle school students to discover the person behind aging and Alzheimer’s by giving them a set of tools and then empowering them to figure out which tool or set of tools to engage given frequently changing circumstances. In January, after an intense battle with two large Lymphoma masses outsizing my spleen, I underwent a successful robotic splenectomy.  In February I began an 18-week course of chemo to obliterate any  possible microbes on my journey to be fully … [Read more...]

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