Want to connect across generations? Join us:

Friendships are finally getting their due. Once relegated to a distant third position after life partners and children, a spate of new books are spotlighting the importance of friends. And research shows that people with close friends are healthier – both emotionally and physically – than those without them. Friendships are also a vital tool to bridge differences — and intergenerational friendships are a key piece of the puzzle. So why do you need older and younger friends? And how can you start making friends with people outside your peer group?

This conversation features an amazing, age-diverse group of panelists who are all thinking deeply about how we can all make more friends across generations. You’ll leave with ideas about how to find new intergenerational friendships — and deepen existing ones.

The event was moderated by CoGenerate VP of Narrative Strategy Marci Alboher and featured:

• Emily Garcia-Green, Chief Youth Development Officer, Bridge USA
• Nim de Swardt, Co-Founder, ReConnect + Intergenerational expert
• Nicole Kenney, Founder, Hey Auntie!
• Kate Hoepke, Founding Partner + Board Chair, Village Movement California
• De’Amon Harges, Social Banker + Founder, The Learning Tree

Transcript (machine generated):

Marci Alboher 

Hi all. Thank you so much for joining today’s webinar on friendships across generations. For those of you who are new to our community, I am Marci Alboher, vice president of narrative strategy for cogenerate. We are a national nonprofit, bringing older and younger changemakers. together to solve problems, bridge divides, and Co-create a better future. I am especially jazzed to lead this conversation about cross-generational friendships, because these relationships have so much promise to provide the social connection many of us are craving in these isolating times. And also because all collecting older and younger friends is actually one of my favorite hobbies bordering on an obsession. And I think the same is true for each of the panelists that you’re going to meet shortly. We invited these three community leaders to join us because each one of them is doing really amazing work that involves connecting across generations or other kinds of differences, and also because of how they walk through the world as humans. As the conversation unfolds, please feel free to post questions using the chat or the q&a feature. Also, feel free to share little anecdotes about your own intergenerational friendships, we are going to be looking at them. My colleagues, Duncan and Michelle are working behind the scenes that are going to pass questions and comments to me to bring into the conversation. So that it will not just feel like we’re speaking at you. And as we kick this off, I just want to get right to introducing my fellow panelists here and give you a little sense of where each of them is coming from. So as each introducing each one of you, if you’re comfortable, remember to share your age, I think it will around us in the way we are all coming from our own generational and age perspectives in this conversation. I’m gonna start with Emily. So Emily, turn off your camera, turn on your camera. Emily is zooming in from Arizona. And Emily is the chief Youth Development Officer for bridge USA. I got to know Emily through the recent work we did with a group of young leaders to learn what they were seeking from in their collaborations with older allies and supporters of their work. And as part of that project, we learned that Emily was really curious about forming friendships outside of her own age group. And that sparked a lot of interesting activity over the last, I don’t know six months or so, which we’re going to explore shortly. But Emily, can you just share a little bit of what you do at BridgeUSA? Because it offers some nice grounding for our topic.

Nim de Swardt 

Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m so excited to participate in today’s important discussion. And thank you to everyone who’s tuning in, I see all the comments and I can see that this is really going to be a nationwide discussion that we’re going to have. So the work that I do at bridge USA as I lead our high school efforts and bridge USA we are a student movement that is trying to fight political polarization by bringing together students from across the political spectrum to try to better understand each other to approach political discussions from a point of empathy and curiosity rather than the vet rule that we see out that we see playing out in our politics today.

Marci Alboher 

Wonderful Emily. Okay, I want to get right to our next panelist is Nim de Swardt who’s zooming in from Australia where it is quite early in the morning. Nim is a self described intergenerational evangelist and a social entrepreneur. I got to meet Nim in Baja, Mexico when she was a midlife intern at the modern elder Academy, a place that is dear to both him and me. And then you are so taken with the idea of intergenerational relationships, you live and breathe it in everything that you do. And you’ve really become like an international ambassador on intergenerational issues and relationships. Where does that passion come from?

Nim de Swardt 

Oh, thanks, Marci. Yes. So this is the most exciting webinar of my life. I could speak to you guys about it for many hours. I think genuinely, for me. It’s been something that I’ve been living and breathing. You know, as you mentioned, from going to mea, to working with Chip teaching the intergenerational wisdom sharing workshop, into Gen relationships have, yeah, there have been my life force for over 10 years. And I guess it all started because I’m genuinely curious for the human condition. And there’s nothing more we can learn from that from people who have lived it and the lived life experiences. So I’m constantly, you know, hunting modern elders to connect and collaborate with.

Marci Alboher 

Right, thanks, Nam. Next up, Kate Hoepke. Kate, show us your beautiful face. So Kate is zooming in from San Francisco, where she is executive director of San Francisco Village, as well as the board chair of the village movement in California. I met Kate because she was a fellow in our public, our Encore Public Voices Fellowship, which is a program we ran for three years to support an age and otherwise diverse group of thought leaders at the intersection of aging, intergenerational issues and social justice, and aid. And Kate is a huge champion of really so many issues relating to the life course. So Kate, can you tell us for those who don’t even know what the village movement is, what that is, and and how intergenerational relationships fit into it?

Kate Hoepke 

Yes, thank you. Merci. Thanks for inviting me. It’s great to be on this illustrious panel. So the village model is an intentional caring community to support older adults who want to age in place, which means age in their own homes and communities. And we just we realize that the independence that we all cherish, as Americans, is really only possible through interdependence. So learning how to lean on each other to ask for help when we need it to give help to someone else. It’s a virtuous cycle. So our San Francisco village is 15 years old. And we’re one of the oldest villages in the country, there are about 300 villages across the country. They’re about 50, in California, so we started village movement California about six years ago, as a way to scale the movement, and to attract the kind of support that we think we need from the healthcare industry and from government and from other concerned constituents.

Marci Alboher 

Right, and and the intergenerational piece of it. Oh, yeah,

Kate Hoepke 

thank you. So you know, just believing that the village model is really built on social capital, and how to leverage social capital. And by that I mean the relationships that exist within neighborhoods and communities. And we discovered early on that there were a lot of younger people that were very interested in what we were doing, and wanted to belong to have a sense of community themselves, that were missing elders in their lives because they had moved to San Francisco from far flung places, and wanted to recreate a sense of family and connection and belonging. Belonging is a primary theme for us. So we have about 620 older adult members, and we have over 200, multi generational volunteers. So most of those intergenerational relationships start with a volunteer opportunity.

Marci Alboher 

Thank you, Kate. Okay, next up De’Amon. Please show us your face. Hey, do you mind zooming Indianapolis? I see a lot of Indianapolis in the house. So clearly people are coming out, you know, hopefully connected to your many communities. I will say no One has a cooler set of titles than the Aman who, as you see self identified roving listener, also known as social banker. All the immense work is imbued with his love of community and forming deep relationships. And it’s funny that Kate mentioned social capital, because I know De’Amon That’s vital to everything that you do. And could you share a little bit so that people have a little grounding of how you work in community? Maybe tell us a little bit about the Learning Tree, which is one of the pillars for your community work?

De’Amon Harges 

Yeah. So absolutely, absolutely. Yep. I’m actually in Illinois now, but my neighborhood is on the northwest side of Indianapolis, close to downtown. And the Learning Tree is just a group of neighbors and friends who look to be witness to what’s good in the world. Yeah, my role as a social banker is basically, you know, pulling people together to fall in love with each other.

Marci Alboher 

I’m so glad love came into the room this quickly. Okay.

De’Amon Harges 

Yeah, yeah. Well, just just one more thing. And I think the my thing around intergenerational work comes from my grandparents. And my daughter.

Marci Alboher 

Got it modeling modeling there. Yeah. Okay. And our final panelist is Nicole Kenney, who’s zooming in from Philadelphia. Hey, Nicole. And Nicole is a social impact strategy consultant, as well as the founder of hey, auntie, and an alum of our Innovation Fellowship. And Nicole, why don’t you start by just grounding us in the mission of Hey ante, and why you created it. Sure.

Nicole Kenney 

First, thank you again, for the invitation and the opportunity to be here. And it truly is a privilege to sit in this space and share space with the other panelists. So my name is Nicole Kenney. I’m the founder of hey, auntie, and we are a relationship building service and community. And we connect black women across ages and life stages, to learn the rules, gain the tools and build the networks to thrive at home work and everywhere in between. And we’re really on a mission to close the racial health and wealth gaps that are facing black women. And we do this by working at the intersection of intergenerational bonds, cultural competency, and technology to help black women across the life course really deliver non clinical emotional and social support, to help them thrive over their daily stressors of their life. So that’s what we do.

Marci Alboher 

Well, I’m going to now go in reverse, and I’m going to stay with you, Nicole, and I’m going to ask anyone who I don’t think anybody shared their age. So in your next responses, if you can share your age, remember to do that. So Nicole, first, how old are you? I’m 40. Yeah, and Nicole. So I’m really interested in this idea that often we meet someone who’s older, or younger than us through a formal relationship, like we’re matched, or there we are a teacher student relationship, or someone is a coach on a athletic team, in your case, you make an anti match. So I want to understand it could be your boss or manager or a direct report, when a relationship starts out with a little bit of formality like that, how have you seen this is really going to be a question for everyone, because I think you’ve all experienced this, how have you experienced or seen, like an evolution into the friendzone? Like, what tips us from one of those more formal structured relationships, maybe into a real friendship?

Nicole Kenney 

Yeah, so I believe, and this is also building off of the values and the cultural legacy of Auntie’s that I’ve tried to live by is that you know, friendships and relationships really build at the Speed of Trust. And so really understanding that there is a mutual opportunity to build trust together. And you can do that through First and foremost, authenticity, sharing on vulnerability, for me, that has really created opportunities from something that might seem formal to kind of building, you know, to more of a like a friendship to actually more of a familial connection over time. And I would also just say consistency, right? And so, you know, I believe that you get whatever you put in, right, you reap what you sow. And so really being intentional about not just getting mad, even more important, not just getting but giving. I’m always thinking about, you know, how can I give How can I serve, you know, I was just sharing with someone else. I’ve rarely will I not in a conversation thinking about how can I help you? How can I support you? So and that’s an IT and it always has you on their mind. Right? And so that’s one of the ways that I’ve been able to see these relationships evolve from more kind of traditional, formal to more kind of familiar and friendly

Marci Alboher 

Yeah, I mean, you know, okay, this comes up, you talk about, like the village members, and then volunteers who I know often are younger. And that’s a matching to and like, Can you see any ways that those relationships evolve? And I’m sure some of them just stay as like a helper relationship. what’s the, what’s the trajectory? If it happens?

Kate Hoepke 

Yeah. Well, first, I’ll start with my age, as you asked earlier, I am 69. And so you know, what you’re, what you’re asking about, you know, the matching thing is really kind of an instrumental reason for bringing people together. I think in age groups, we find ourselves in bubbles oftentimes, right, and we just can’t get out of the bubble, how I want, I have a desire, you know, for closer relationship with people of other ages, but I don’t know how to make it happen. So when we match up a volunteer with an elder, we’re creating an opportunity. And then those two people or maybe more than two are going to take it to other levels, depending on their own desire, and their own willingness to like what Nicole said, you know, to get vulnerable, to have a desire to share to have a desire to be known. I think that’s huge. And I think that in those days of social media, and all other ways in which our faces are out there, where our persona is, you know, just that it’s just a persona, I think there’s this longing for all of us to be known. And that doesn’t go away. And for older people, there’s a phenomenon of invisibility, a lot of older people will talk about that, you know, so it’s like, well, do I matter anymore? You know, do I because I’m not productive? Maybe because I’m not bringing in a paycheck, or I’m, you know, I don’t work unnecessarily in a traditional job. So I think those are issues that actually we share across generations. I think a younger lot of younger people could speak similarly to that kind of invisibility, or that longing to be seen and to be known. And to know that we met or, yeah, so yeah.

Marci Alboher 

Love it. Who’s leaning in, I see De’Amon nodding, anything you want to add here,

De’Amon Harges 

I want to say, Kate, you need to meet my 21 year old daughter. And I’m serious. She just created a research and she’s going to Honolulu to present it is She is wanting to know when people are authentically seen in what she said is, is that she can tell by how they’re recognized, and how they’re regarded. And for seniors, and young youth, right, these two places, that how we regard them is based on how we see how stories are told publicly about youth and elders. So anyway, also, I was thinking my grandfather was the first person because as you know, grandparents are like, the most valuable groups of people we can have. So because parents work. And I think for us what I’ve learned, and I don’t I don’t call my, our program, intergenerational, we just kind of do it. It’s kind of baked into the culture. But my grandma, that was sit down. And what he did was told stories, and stories, the keeper of stories are always looked as wisdom keepers, right? I mean, even as you the person who tells the most stories have this. So I’ve sat down because I love the stories. And I wanted to mimic what he did. And so all the work that that we do now mimics what my grandparents did in their community want no gift going wasted. Everybody can teach something. Right? And abundance is the way we take a frame. So that’s what I take into the work with my neighbors is that every single person is important. Yeah,

Marci Alboher 

this makes me I want to pivot a tiny bit here. I think what I heard from Kate really got to like the issue of like, vulnerability, and sometimes there’s awkwardness when we are crossing a generational bridge and I Nim and Emily, I’ve talked about this with both of you like, I want to start with you, Emily, I know you you had some hesitancy about about approaching people older than you, which is what you were craving as friends. So what did that feel like? And what helped you start to get over that? Oh,

Nim de Swardt 

I love this question. And to answer the question about my age, I’m 24 recently 24. So, Kate, part of what you were saying about younger people feeling invisible to that’s very real, especially what I hear and what I’ve experienced in my life being 24 and having my college experience impacted by COVID and then working in a virtual workplace. It’s very hard to feel like you’re getting established as a young adult in a fully virtual world, where, in some ways it’s almost this weird disconnect, where you can have a very prominent online presence, but then almost feel like you’re disappearing into the fold in the real world, in ways of you feel like you don’t have enough experience to really have a seat at the table, which Marci, I know, we talked about a lot, and what young leaders want to see from olders in the workplace. And to answer my question, though, about how I felt when I realized I was craving these older friendships was realizing that I had my own biases about older people, too, that I had to first remove, in order to allow that tipping point of a mentor mentee relationship to really become a friendship. And one of the biggest biases that I had to really work through was assuming that older people just no longer wanted to have fun, but that it was all business, no play, that we wouldn’t be able to connect over, you know, the news or pop stars like Taylor Swift, or all these things that I could talk about with people in my generation, I had this assumption that once you turned 40 5060, that you just stopped living almost once I really realized that, oh, if I let down my guard a little bit, too, and I let them see the real Emily. And I don’t know about my hobbies, my interest. That’s almost like extending this olive branch to somebody else who might be feeling like, can I lower my window my, like, reach down to can I accept this olive branch? Can I talk about my hobbies and interests with this person? So to the youngers in the room, older people still like to have fun and have a natural chemistry. Don’t let age be a barrier and understand that we have our own biases when it comes to how we look at older people. Yeah, Emily, I

Marci Alboher 

love that you brought chemistry into the mix, because we started out talking about some of these formal matching relationships or neighborhood relationships. But Nim, I’d love you to weigh in on this because maybe you’ve had a parade of like, I just know many of your intergenerational relationships. And I’ve also seen you write about them and post about friendships on social media with elders, but maybe now that you are, how old are you? 38. Now, maybe, maybe you’re now going younger, too. But tell us like, what do you think is the role of chemistry and and again, this line of like, when does a person outside of your age group kind of get into the friend category and not just like a mentor or even a wisdom keeper, but friendship seems to signal parity, and then just wondering like, how you’ve how you’ve made that happen?

Nim de Swardt 

Yeah, like, I love what Emily said, about the vulnerability vulnerability piece. One of the pieces that I always go back to is like, show them the real fields over the life highlight reels, because quite often, we’re just showing the world our life highlight reels, and there is acts of generosity, like, another thing that I always go back to is like, I’m looking for the wind, when, you know, we’re always asking ourselves, like, what can I teach? And what do I want to learn? There is that mutual exchange that happens in intergenerational friendships, and it always starts with someone coming from a place of generosity. You know, I think as well, like, we, our age is our greatest asset, no matter what age we are, and there is something so profound that I get in my intergenerational friendships, and that is the value of lived life experience, and what we were just speaking about the power of storytelling, and sharing stories, you know, in my greatest life crisises you know, I’ve gone to my unofficial board of directors, a group of modern elders, who have walked similar paths to this crisis, and have been able to guide me through their lived life experience. So I think, you know, stories are our greatest passport to reconnect with each other across the ages. And I think that it really starts with the individual. You know, Emily was interrogating some of her biases. And I think that, that there’s an importance to that self connection piece. You know, be honest with your own assumptions and your own stereotypes. But also know that your age is your secret superpower.

Marci Alboher 

So you know, the chain like Emily’s getting vulnerable and kind of him, you’re kind of this, you know, show show the real feels not the highlight reels like a huge power for me or like kind of spark and making intergenerational relationships is when I realized that I was kind of aging and being into being an adult of parent age without kids of my own. And like, if I wanted to have relationships with younger people, I had to be super intentional about them. And some of them were formal mentoring relationships, and I used to teach and that would help. But I ended up I think, sometimes when you’re not the parent, you actually can get to the friendzone a little quicker. Because you show up and you’re something other, right, you’re something often that the parent is not like we all seek people who are a little different than what our parents can offer us. Like, I know my mother’s in the webinar here, Linda add to somewhere in the chat stream. And my mother is a major model for forming intergenerational relationships. And what’s wild is a bunch of friends that are my mother’s age. And they’re very different than my mother and I do different things with them, I learned different things for them. And then my mother has a fleet of younger people in her life who are really different than me who lean on her or who do fun things with her like they’re so I think we do need these these relationships that are like different than family, but also sometimes just at the age of our parents, our grandparents. But I want to get to something, I want us to be careful not to be all rainbows and sunshine, citing NIMS, we are grounded with a meditation to rainbows that Nim led before we got here. And I just want to ask, like, what’s hard about intergenerational friendships and what can get in the way? Because it’s not always peachy. And I think there are some distinct things that come up when we make friends with someone who has a really different life stage than us. Does anybody want to speak to that? Kate?

Kate Hoepke 

Yeah, I think, you know, I really appreciate Emily’s identifying her own bias, you know, that she thinks this about older people, and therefore, that restricts her from, you know, taking any kind of action. I think that’s really important that each of us be able to do that in all areas of our lives, right, that we are self aware that we are willing to do self reflection, I’m willing to look at my own stuff. And I had a conversation with some of our members recently, we’re mostly women in their 70s and 80s. And they were talking about how hard it is to reach out to their neighbors and to reach out to people in their area that they, you know, they may need help. And so I asked one of the women, I said, What is the risk? And that was just as simple as could be. And she just there was silence, you know? And she just said, Well, I don’t know. I said, Okay, good. So maybe just for each of us to think about that, what is what am I risking here, that I might be rejected, that somebody might say, No, that somebody might not like me, that they may not connect with me, you know, I’ve lived enough years to know that I can live through that, you know, and I’m going to have, you know, but I think that there’s always risk in new friendship. And it’s because of that vulnerability. And it’s because of me being willing to peel off some of the layers and and let you actually see me, yeah, and not the persona that I want you to see how to remember how you said it, Nim, but I I get you, you know that there’s a, you know, a way that I want you to see me, but in fact, you’ll never know me that way. So I think that being willing to to do that kind of little internal risk assessment is helpful.  The real feels versus the highlight reels. Someone else someone else felt anything related to like the hard stuff that you want to put in the room. De’Amon?

De’Amon Harges 

No, no, go ahead. Okay.

Nim de Swardt 

I’ll be super quick, don’t art. I guess what’s hard is like when you think about the win win. It’s a two way street. And so it can be challenging if you feel like you’re coming to with this intention, but you don’t feel like the other party is. And then you could also face the resistance. And I think because people if they haven’t experienced the potential and the possibilities with intergenerational friendships, it’s hard for them to truly understand. So I, you know, I think it’s a personal responsibility for us to show them a different way, and keep on showing up with this element of generosity to show them that it’s not scary to have friends across different ages. And the second thing is, is when it’s hard, I always come back to what’s done. deeply personal is also deeply universal. And so you’re always looking for those bridges of common ground to connect, no matter what age they are. And so, you know, use your curiosity to try search and seek those common ground life experiences. And that really helps to, you know, find that, that win win, and that mutual exchange that can exist.

Marci Alboher 

I think Nicole, you also had your hand up on this.

Nicole Kenney 

One of the things I often hear from older folks, also younger folks, but older folks is like, younger folks don’t listen, right. And, and what I think is really interesting about this is one of the things aunties have taught me that I really love. Sometimes when you’re older, you know, you just and I can say the student, and I’m 40 Is that you think you have a lot of wisdom you do. And you have a lot of advice to share, right? But one of the things aunties have taught me is that they don’t use the term advice, actually, because they still want to give the you space to say, this is your life. And this is these are your decisions to make. And so I’m more just walking alongside you, right? I’m using my lived experiences to give you perspective, give you something to think about. And so when you enter these spaces, not feeling like I have to be right, but I’m just here for you. I have seen these relationships grow. And I have seen that older folks feel more comfortable with that. And then younger folks were more comfortable with that. And I heard an older person say, you know, the benefit of getting older is wisdom, but also can come cynicism. And so it’s really important when you’re a community where younger folks to suspend judgment, because I don’t know, it might look different, right. And I have had to find myself saying, You know what, it might, it might be different for you, you know, how are you thinking about this? How are you looking at this? And I think that can help kind of tear down some of those walls and kind of build more connection more quickly.

Marci Alboher 

Yeah, De’Amon, I realized that jumped over you and you were gonna chime in on this? Do you want to wait for a different topic? Okay. So um, so the issue, an issue that came up that I have in, in pre conversations with all of you, and I think it really relates to like, when we have friends at different ages, often they’re really in different life stages, and kind of dealing with different parts of let’s say, the family lifestyle, a cycle, they could be dealing with a health journey that feels foreign to you, if you are not at that life stage, I think caregiving shows up in different ways at different life stages, often. How do we see a good chair the idea of care and and when a friend, especially an older friend might need more care, which can sometimes make a friendship feel on even come up Nim, I just kind of want to start with you. Because you you posted a really interesting story recently, about an elder in your community that you’ve been getting to know. And you and a bunch of younger people are have started to visit this man. And you talk to him as a friendship. And I’m wondering, does it feel like a friendship? Does it feel more like you’re looking in on someone to check in? Does it feel like there’s parity in that relationship? And and if it is those things? What does it meant for you?

Nim de Swardt 

Yeah, so John is 94. And I have seen him quite a few times in my community. And I guess, naturally, I’m drawn to have conversations with elders. So I stopped to have a conversation. And, you know, we’ve sparked up a friendship. And, you know, I think one thing when it comes to these intergenerational friendships is that, you know, it actually happens in the micro moments of your day to day, my sister calls this term called, it’s called human hunting. And I guess it’s a term that she gave me for my unusual behavior. But, you know, I, there’s plenty of moments in your day today, whether it’s on public transport at the coffee shop, at the grocery grocery store, these everyday moments for intergenerational connection, and friendships. And so you know, it doesn’t have to be so formalized and structured, it’s actually the opportunity exists in our communities, if we just get out there into them. And, you know, I think it’s quite surprising how easy it is to spark up intergenerational connection and conversations and friendships within the community. I think there’s also a more intentional outreach approach where, you know, you’re getting curious for something like outside of your usual age group, and, you know, you’re looking for more diverse perspectives or shared experiences with someone that is of a different age. Yeah.

Marci Alboher 

I think this relates to I’m starting to look at the questions in the q&a that have popped in and like you started them by a bunch of people have been asking, Where do I find these older and younger people to form relationships with? Obviously, some of you have existing communities like Canty Learning Tree, the village. But how would you suggest? If anyone wants to offer a few tips for how would you specifically maybe find older people? And how might you specifically find younger people, and I just want to propose that they are often in the same place. So I mean, I have made many, many friends in my neighborhood, I used to have a dog, my dog was like a people magnet, I met countless, just by sitting on a bench with my dog. And people would come over and sit with us and I would share my coffee. And before I knew it, I literally had like, many friends in my neighborhood across all kinds of different so coffee has come up in countless conversations with all of you that you know, the coffee shop is a place. But Emily, we haven’t heard from you in a little while. I know some of the places you’ve been going to look for friends talk about it. I know you have two specific examples that I want to hear I want you to offer.

Nim de Swardt 

So my super broad advice is when you’re out frequently frequent, frequenting sorry, the spots that you normally go to take inventory, and actually, like really look around and see who’s in those spaces. Once I started doing that, I realized that I was actually interacting with more intergenerational folks than I once originally thought. So that’s one thing. Another actual story that I have is I recently went on a trip it was a listening tour. For the bridging space, I had the opportunity to go to Israel and the West Bank and be near Gaza. And it was with some other bridge builders in the bridge building community. And initially, I was really drawn to the people that were my age, because this was a very intense trip. It was a trip that also had a diverse group of perspectives, diverse ages. And I remember what I was feeling comfortable. And what I was attracted to in those moments was comfortability. So I went originally to the people that were around my age. And then I remembered I want to make these intergenerational friendships. So I need to actually step a little bit outside of my own comfort zone, and see if I can connect with anyone else on this trip and start forming these friendships and relationships with them. And it turns out in a funny twist of fate, that I had a more natural connection and chemistry with some of the 5060 year olds on the trip, than I did the other 20 Somethings on the trip. And that has really turned into some lifelong friendships that I have. And it was through not only talking about the situation that we were in, and the intensity of the trip, but then also asking them, What do you like to do for fun? What does your life look like outside of the bridging work that you’re doing here? And that was really where we were able to connect and realize that we not only had this thing in common, which was the bridging work and a real hunger for peace. But we also had something else in common, which were where people and we had similar interests. And we could also talk about those interests.

Marci Alboher 

Ilove it. Is there someone else who has like a practical approach? Yeah, Nicole.

Nicole Kenney 

It’s super practical I do it every Monday and Friday, I teach at my local YMCA. And that’s where a lot of my intergenerational friends have come from. And so and I teach a strength training class, and when I tell folks that half of my class are women, over 50, people think I’m talking about silver silver slippers, and I’m not, I am talking about a high intensity strength training class. And so just like there folks over 50, there are a lot of folks under 50 and my class and so every Monday and Friday, I’m seeing people between the ages of their mid 20s to their 60s and 70s. and everywhere in between setting up each other’s equipment supporting each other through different routines. So that would be my recommendation is the gym has been a great place. And not the necessarily age segregated spaces. But like the spaces that Zumba you know, that really is inviting to all ages, I think is a great place to meet folks across, you know, ages and stages.

Marci Alboher 

I can help like those of you in the chat have been answering these questions. So I just want to lift up some of what we’re seeing in the chat. So first of all, someone asked Where does Nicole teach Nicole teaches at the Y in

Nicole Kenney 

West Philadelphia, West Philly.

Marci Alboher 

So Nicole it feel free to pop that in if you want to say what why it is. So yes, we are good. distribute the chat. So don’t worry, all of these ideas will be in there. I think another thing that came out is kind of affinity communities. Someone here wrote Gen Z members of the LGBTQ community in organizations like Out Boulder center on Colfax, in Denver are interested in speaking with the closet generation. Hopefully in your community. There are LGBTQ friendly organizations that are engaging the different generations I lift up that that is just one example of affinity groups like Emily saw that she went on a trip for other bridge builders, Nicole hosts a community for black women like there are affinity groups are a very interesting way Kate runs the village movement for people who want to age in place, which is a natural affinity group. But then they brought in youngers to to create these different kinds of relationships. So people talk about Trader Joe’s Joe’s, your food Co Op, Farmers Market coffee shops, really third, these are called third spaces, maybe not Trader Joe’s, but third spaces, public places in your neighborhood parks my example with my dog. Okay, yeah.

Kate Hoepke 

You know, Marci, you asked a question a few minutes ago about caring, and what what role does caring have in developing friendship. And I think De’Amon d dt, I can’t pronounce your name. Say for him. De’Amon, I ik talked about love. And being really out of the closet about loving people and being actively involved in something locally, where we are creating love and care, it is an incredibly rewarding experience. So even if I’m not going to be engaged in a long term friendship, if I’m able to participate in something where I’m caring for someone else, it could be as simple as giving them a ride somewhere or helping them go grocery shopping or, you know, helping guide somebody on the street, whatever the thing is, you know. So our mission statement here at San Francisco village is that we operationalize love for elders. And so there’s this, we’re always thinking about all the various ways in which people are doing that. So it creates relationship, of course, but it also creates kind of an intrapersonal relationship with myself. And with the sense that I am, I’m a given person, and I’m looking for these opportunities to do that. So just wanted to tell you this one story quickly, we have a 95 year old member who lives in a third floor, walk up rent controlled apartment, lives on fixed income, social security, and she augments her income by sewing. And she’s been doing this since she was a teenager. And her sewing machine broke. And she found out about us, she called us she said, Do you know anybody that could fix my sewing machine, we sent her like a 27 year old guy. And he went over there spent about three hours with her fixing that sewing machine. But she, she was so effusive in her love for this young man. And she said things like you gave me part of my life back, you know, so this guy walks out of that experience, you know, he carries that with him now, you know, like I’m having an impact on someone else’s life in such a significant way. I find that to be a source of self love. And I think this is critically important if we’re going to learn to build bridges and re engage with each other and not feel alienated in the ways that we currently do. Thank you,

Marci Alboher 

Nim, chime in.

Nim de Swardt 

Kate, it’s such a beautiful story. And you know, one of the best cures for loneliness or disconnection is being of service and, you know, some of my intergenerational friendships in my life have been such a bomb when I was struggling with loneliness, you know, when, I guess like, the social connection that I get from my intergenerational friendships is, it’s so nourishing, like, they’re my chosen family. They’ve welcomed me into their home, you know, they have helped share share their own lived experiences of similar struggles. And so I feel like the is a beautiful act of service of showing up for an intergenerational friendship that can actually really help you. If you are feeling slightly disconnected or lonely. It’s, it’s been such a bomb for me at some of my most, I guess, disconnected chapters of my life.

Marci Alboher 

Love that. I want to just hear if any of you and I feel like De’Amon I know you have one. Have like you talked about your grandfather. But I think you also talked about an older friend who I have met is when you and I met in person you were with an older friend. Can you tell talk about like what you learn from Mike, one of your older friends about, about how you wanted to be lean into that as you age yourself.

De’Amon Harges 

Out voter was on. And now voter is right next door to the church that my best friend is pastor. And first of all, I just wanted to say the biggest barrier in our for connection, or this connection between elders and youth that intergenerational is the idea that we just separate things period. It is a problem when we have to even think about humans at the best place. In fact, I talked about relationship being one of the original currencies. Time is also was probably one of the most valuable pieces of currency, when you born, everybody got a burst or somebody put in commonality when you die. No one gets to tell they pursue and neither story people, other people own that story. And yet we walk around like, we got a box in front of us, right? We little boxes. So when we start to just use the word love and friendship, without thinking about I got a friend with a disability, we’re black. I got a friend. So Mike, illustrated that when I was 15, that when I was 26. Work, not a big churchgoer. I walked over to my guru in South Bend, Indiana, somebody said you should go get the notice, dude, because he loved artists. I’m an artist. Why wouldn’t you go? Then I was a little skeptical. And then my own blinders on. And the thing he did not one program that have ever walked into not one social service agency that one church has ever asked me this question. Tell me about your birth story. And that’s how 25 years we’ve been in France. And the thing that I didn’t realize the story that I told him was a story I told him about my grandfather. He was the first person to acknowledge. So what I’m saying is that how you find these people, they’re archetypes. They’re young, they’re old. They’re creative. They’re men. They’re women. Weird. But what they do is they inquire, Nim said the word curiosity. They’re actively curious. The other thing that gets in the way of this is Trump, like we don’t ever sit down and talk about not talk, listen to the traumas of other people. And I deeply want to think about my grandparents that come to tears, because people like them are sitting with this wisdom and answers of polar polarizing space. And yet we have polarized people. We take people with disabilities, and we warehouse them with other people with disabilities. We don’t even use the word integration, the word jet jet for case you get used more than the word integration. So I think for me, my friend, a good friend, acts like a good friend. They inquire, they celebrate. And they looked.

Marci Alboher 

I mean, so this reminds me. I mean, we have a question here. I want to go to some of the questions with the remaining time we have less. There was one question that said, I love this one. How do we lower the emphasis on chronological age and just approach age and generation differently? And I think De’Amon You’re asking us to do this, let’s just take it down. And why do we Why does everything have to have this identity and I’m of two minds, there is a special role that older and younger can play in our life. And I think we need it all. We need peers that are age peers, but we need to like see into the future. And sometimes we see something of ourselves when we are with someone younger, we know where where the person has been, you know, I think they’re both vital. And many people get it through family, and many people have to fill in the parts that are unavailable in their families or to complement what we have in our families. But there is this concept that I really love a phrase that was coined by Gina Powell, who’s a writer and a futurist, and she talks about perennials and the perennial is the person who is ever blooming like the plant perennial plant, who remains relevant and who is not defined by their age but am I go to my mom again, my mom is a perennial, she just knows how to be relative And she knows more about pop culture and music than I do. She’s always knowing the latest celebrity. And it allows you to connect with the I think people who have a major sports obsession can walk into any room and talk to anybody about sports or these kind of things that let us cut through. So I think we can all aspire to be perennials. But I do want to suggest that maybe there is some reason to have like this age diverse with that is part of it’s it’s a gift when we can get it. I have a few remaining questions for each of you. And I also want each of us you to leave us with some parting kind of your own personal counsel. But Nicole, I’ve been wanting to ask you, you know, you run a community, specifically for black women, and a few people have asked in here. Are you sharing your learnings out with other communities? And I know that you are so I’d love you to talk about that. But what is the power of affinity communities? Like why? Why do we need some communities that are for our own gender, our own cultural group?

Nicole Kenney 

Sure, and I’ll be quick to manage the time but so for Hey, auntie, specifically, we were founded, I was founded to respond to the unique stressors that black women face due to their unique identities. And one of the challenges we find is that one of the greatest barriers to even asking for help is safety. And so that’s what the affinity group provides. When we talk about, you know, needing to be vulnerable, needing to ask for help, I need to know that you understand me you understand my lived experience, and that you’re not gonna even re traumatize me, you know, because that’s a very real thing. And so having affinity groups really gives that opportunity to be in those safe spaces. That being said, in terms of learnings, absolutely. Because we also believe very much in cultural humility. So there are a lot of folks who are supported tours of hey, Auntie, I’m involved with Hey, auntie, and other ways who are not black women, but who are deeply invested in the health and the well being of black women. And vice versa. There’s a lot of learnings we’ve taken, taken out of hey, auntie, that we map and like to share with other communities, maybe how do you lift up cultural values? You know, how do you lift up certain conflict, and that conflict communication skills, you know, I shared, I’m speaking to a conflict resolution Association next week, right. And so as you know, at the end of the day, we’re all human. And I agree, we all want to love and be loved, right? And so really hate, it gives me the opportunity to kind of highlight what works really well. And then my ultimate goal is to be able to share that far and wide, because that’s something that we’re all really seeking.

Marci Alboher 

Right, Emily, for your closer tell us a little bit about how how might bridging techniques that you use to facilitate really difficult conversations help us as we go out in the world and try to make friendships across difference age. And otherwise,

Nim de Swardt 

she was going to bring this up with one of the challenges that can pop up in intergenerational friendships is different political beliefs, or different lifestyles that people lead. And the work that we really do is trying to equip people with tools to navigate these differences. To prevent us from vilifying each other if we hold different beliefs if we hold a different worldview and different understandings of life and to try to create a place where we can say I disagree with you, but I can understand where you’re coming from, or I’m really curious about where you’re coming from, and why you believe what you believe. So a couple of like quick tools that people can use in their day to day lives is one suspend judgment. So really try to go in erasing all of those biases and hidden biases that you might have about the person that you’re about to engage with. For me with older people, it’s realizing that they wanted to still have fun that for some reason was a big hindrance in my life. For someone else, it might be assuming that younger people don’t want to listen, that might be true in some cases, but it’s not true in all cases. So really suspending that judgment. The other thing is really, really lean into active listening. If you find yourself really stuck and not understanding someone take a couple of steps back and start asking them deeper questions like, Is there someone in your life that maybe showed you, you know, a reason to support this cause or why you’re so passionate about this? Ask more questions. Spend less time actually talking about yourself and spend more time trying to dig into who this person is and how they became the way that they are.

Marci Alboher 

There’s theme here of deep listening. It’s coming up in so many of your stories, Nim, how can we all leave today? Having a little more Nim inside of us this obviously, so naturally and give us something to channel our inner Nim as we walk out.

Kate Hoepke 

Well, it’s now very cool intergenerational friendships is the future. I mean, look at Beyonce and Dolly Parton. The ultimate intergenerational collaboration and friendships like, show your friends that you are a pioneer. And you can, you know, you can really experience such profound growth and learning through intergenerational friendships, my two top tips, you know, look for the wind winds, what can you teach? What can you learn? Similar to what Emily said, you know, listen, to learn, rather than listen to respond, you know, be generous with your attention. And one of my favorite questions that I asked elders when I make them is instead of asking, how old are you? I asked, How many years have you lived? And this reframe really celebrates their age, and it takes them away from you know, the general question of How old are you, though, you know, love and hate living the into Jim?

Marci Alboher 

Love it. Kate, I kind of want you to part with their many, many questions about the village movement, we will share resources on the village movement and how people can get involved and find if there is a village chapter near them. So you don’t have to get into that now. But I think you sit in a space of the importance of our peers. But how when we when we stay in community, and not isolate us off into age segregated places, like many, many people do, when they age, we have the ability to continue to form friendships with friends, friendships and relationships with people outside of our age group. Any, any, anything you want to riff on there.

Kate Hoepke 

You know, Marci, we, oftentimes we talk about the opportunities that are right here, right here right now. And then we’re constantly creating our own future. And by the choices that we make today, and so we like to talk about a preferred future as opposed to a default future. And that default future can be lonely, it can be isolated, it can be, you know, a lot of the things we don’t want it to be. So having that inform our choices today, I think is important. And many things right, that we could say in closing, but I one of the things I would like to I don’t have any tips, but I do have I, I so deeply believe in self reflection, as a way to be personally accountable. And so I asked myself a lot of questions, and I do inner work around this. And one of the questions that I’d like to leave everybody with is if they could inquire into their own ageism. We live in an ageist society, we do, there’s just no doubt about that. And my definition of ageism, that I take from social science is an internalized bias against my own future self. And I think we’re carrying it around with us from the time we are young kids, and we don’t realize it. And I even have people in their 80s and 90s, who, you know, I don’t want to I don’t want to hang out with old people, you know, I don’t want to but don’t call me old, you know. So we have these internalized biases against our own future self. So to inquire into that, I think is important work.

Marci Alboher 

The amount I need you to be super quick, give us the final parting thought. And then I have a favor to ask of everybody who’s still in the room.

De’Amon Harges 

So parties is a place where people become a true self.

Marci Alboher 

Love it, I want to be at a party with all of you, I am going to ask everybody to stay in the room for two more minutes. Our friend Duncan is going to throw up a very quick survey, we want to figure out how to deliver experiences that this community wants. So take 30 seconds, fill out our poll. And I also want you to know that this discussion today is connected to a deeper body of work that we’re going to be kicking off in the coming months around cogeneration as a solution to the loneliness and isolation crisis that so many are talking about in our country right now. So if this interests interest you, please stay connected to our community and bring others bring people all across your network, whatever age they are. We want more people to be in this community. And you will be hearing from these panelists in other ways and others that are really thinking deep about deep connection, and how we do it better. So thanks for spending a little time with us this afternoon. If you’ve if you’re on our mailing list and Obviously you registered, we’ll send you the chat. We’ll send you the recording. Share this with some others in your life who are interested in this topic, share it intentionally with someone older or younger. And hope to see you at the next webinar. Thanks so much all of you.