Chatham Receives CIC/AARP Grant to Assist Older Adults

PITTSBURGH – Chatham University is pleased to announce that it is one of a select group of 22 institutions across the nation chosen by the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) to receive a grant in the amount of $13,000 to implement a CIC/AARP Foundation Intergenerational Connections: Students Serving Older Adults project, Food Story/Food Secure: Building Community Through Food-Centered Partnerships.

Assistant Professor of English, Carrie Tippen, Ph.D., will serve as the Principal Investigator for this grant, which will be used to enhance connections between undergraduate students and older adults in the community. CIC launched this initiative with support from the AARP Foundation in 2017 to encourage colleges to create or extend programs in which students help low-income older adults (ages 50 and older) address their key needs.

Chatham  will partner with Vintage Senior Services, a center serving low-income senior adults, and Chatham’s Center for Regional Agriculture, Food & Transformation (CRAFT) to address issues around senior isolation and food insecurity.Through social interaction and conversation, as well as food services, the project aims to better understand food insecurity and social isolation in our community.

Chatham students will receive training in oral history techniques as they interact with seniors to share meals and conversation and gather stories about foods that are important to individual identity and culture. Students will record stories, collect recipes, and work together to create a community cookbook that celebrates both the culture and contributions of senior adults in the community.  All stories will be added to CRAFT’s Western Pennsylvania Foodways Collection project. 

More information about the project and the participating institutions is available on the CIC website:  www.cic.edu/programs/intergenerational-connections.