AN age gap didn’t stop two generations in Garrison coming together to mark global intergenerational week.
Little Smarties pre-school and the Garrison weekly coffee morning group came together to plant trees and sow wild flower seeds.
The event saw both groups spending time with each other and bonding while they spread seeds and planted two trees at Rusheen Park.
Olivia McManus, chair of Garrison Community group, can see the positive affects the programme has had on both parties.
“We have run a number of intergenerational events throughout the year, on Monday’s we hold a coffee morning for the retired age, with the local playschool to get them together and it is lovely and really well received, when it went out on our social media people were saying it was lovely to get them age groups together and the joy they took from each other was just lovely,” she said.
“I suppose a lot of them also don’t have grandchildren and some of the children don’t have grandparents for many reasons, so they took a lot of joy from each other,” Olivia added.
Elaine Brownlee from Linking Generations NI is proud to fund the event.
“We are delighted to be able to provide funding from the public health agency to facilitate this mornings event for all ages April grant scheme,” she said. “These intergeneational activities are happening right across Northern Ireland to celebrate global intergenerational week 2024, that’s running from the April 24-30. Now in it’s fifth year, Linking Generations NI are joining 15 countries who use the week to celebrate and showcase the wonderful outcomes that come from the approach, I hope that these initiatives can continue well into the future as it is a case for so many settings to avail of the funding.”
One of the members of Garrison community hub Pat Eston spoke about why he attended the event.
“This is a generation thing to link the youngsters and people of an older age like me and it is just a nice thing to do for the community,” he said.
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