December 21, 2016
Adopting ‘grandparents’ Learn & Play
11
Create lasting memories
Community Voices
2
By Dr. Rance Thomas
Around Town
3
School
8
OFS raises $9,500
Submitted photos Top Left: Villa at Riverwood resident Gisela “GiGi” Paasch sits with her “granddaughter,” UMSL women’s basketball assistant coach Emily Geary. Top Right: UMSL women’s basketball player Shawnta Johnson sits with her adopted grandmother at the Villa at Riverwood. Bottom: UMSL women’s basketball player Kaitlynn Henning chats with her adopted grandparent at the Villa at Riverwood.
UMSL women’s basketball team forge bonds with local senior citizens By Nicholas Elmes Members of the University of Missouri-St. Louis women’s basketball team have one more “family” member to be thinking about when making their Christmas lists this year. The entire team, including both coaches, have been adopted by seniors living at the Villa at Riverwood, creating a unique program to build relationships between the school and older residents in the area. “It is a great way for our players to be out in the community,” said Assistant Coach Emily Geary. “A lot of our players are from far away and it is a good way for them to feel like they have family in the area and to connect with them. “A lot of the ‘grandparents’ don’t have family in the area either, some don’t even have any family anymore, so it is a win-win for both of us,” she added. “It gives the ‘grandparents’ an opportunity to be connected with UMSL.” Senior player Jordan Boyce, who is
from the Houston, Texas area, said she wished they had had the program in place when she was a freshman. “I really think I could have developed a relationship that could be going on four years now,” she said. “It would have been something that would have been truly beneficial to my experience here and the feeling of being so far away from family and home.” But Boyce says she is making the most of the opportunity in her final year on the team. “I think it is extremely important to build relationships in the community,” she said. “It feels good to feel like I have family when I truly don’t have any blood relatives anywhere close to me.” Geary developed the Adopt-a-Grandparent program this year after enjoying a similar program at another school. “I was at Franklin College in Indiana,” she said, “and we did this with grandparents there. It was just such a great
experience for both our players and the ‘grandparents.’ I thought it would be a great thing to start here. Our head coach, Katie Vaughn, lives very close to Villa at Riverwood and mentioned it to me. I contacted their community relations person and asked if they would be interested.” They were, and Geary quickly started getting her players and coaching staff to put together brief bios to send to the seniors. “They wrote about where they were from and their backgrounds,” she said. “Then their coordinator reached out their residents and found some seniors that wanted to participate. We were matched up with little connections, like we have a player from Quincy who was matched with a ‘grandparent’ from Quincy. I played professional basketball in Germany, and got matched with a ‘grandparent’ from Germany.” See ADOPTING page 2
Young artists exhibit artwork
Movie
16
Mainstream studios don’t understand quality filmmaking
FREE Online Subscription
www. mycnews