An idea for anyone involved with a scholastic club

All Things Chess
1

I just posted at ChessNinja.com regarding this idea (as part of discussion on chess and Alzheimers), but I thought someone here might want to use it as well.

I know of quite a few veterans of retirement age and above who learned to play chess during their time in the service. Some of these persons now reside in assisted living and nursing facilities. Wouldn’t it be great for a group of scholastic players to sit down for an hour or two every month to play a game of chess with these seniors? I think both groups would benefit: the seniors would get a visit from a young person, a change from their day-to-day routine, and a mental activity that has been shown to help ward-off dementia and Alzheimers (in some cases); the children would be exposed to older adults with so much wisdom to share, might learn some history, and would learn what it means to give back, even in a little way, to those who have come before them.

Please let me know if you use this in your community.

2

I have run a Two for the Body, One for the Mind program for a number of years, which I ran out of our Senior Annex. It was easy to get people to do the light work out, or get the two hours of physical activity. It was a little harder to get Seniors with no knowledge of chess to get over the stigma of it being hard to learn or master. The only way I built up the chess was to offer free Ice Cream and Ice Cream cake after each meeting.
One benefit was that I started a mentoring program in conjunction with the class, where we offerred Grandparents and Seniors helping raise their Grandchildren help with school work. This worked well until a budgecrunch resulted in closing the Annex at night, the only time children where permitted in the Annex.
I hope that when the economy turns around, we can gain access to a lot of the sites that are stressed by budget restrictions.