Eighty-nine-year-old Genevieve Olsson sits reading a book to Hexter Elementary School student Josse Ganun.
Ganun, 6, moved to Dallas from Cairo, , almost two years ago with his family. He and Olsson work on his letters, and they talk about pets — her new frog and his cat, named Charlie Goofy.
A picture of a gondola in the book prompts them to talk about Venice. Ganun, a serious child, listens intently as she tells him about how gondolas are used to get around the city.
This exchange is typical between volunteers in Senior Source’s Off Our Rockers program and their young charges. People with decades of experience sit down with kids who’ve been identified by their teachers as someone who could profit emotionally and educationally from weekly interaction with an older adult — and they talk or read books or work on math problems.
“The kids really benefit from the attention and love the adults in this program are able to give them,” says Suzanna Swanson, director of the program. “They’re really special friends for these kids.”
Off Our Rockers currently has 230 volunteers in 80 schools in 10 districts, but they’re looking to add at least 70 more volunteers.
“There is such a great need, and the schools are so excited to get volunteers,” Swanson says.
Volunteers must be at least 50 year of age and, in most cases, be able to drive themselves to and from a school. They work with kindergartners through third-graders, focusing on tutoring or mentoring. The minimum time investment is one hour a week, though some volunteers decide to go for longer periods of time.
“It gives them a way to go back to society. To know they’re making a difference in the life of a child that will affect them for the rest of their lives,” Swanson says. “I think that’s really powerful.”
Olsson agrees. She wanted to be a schoolteacher, she says, but was busy first helping her mother with her siblings and then raising her own five children. Off Our Rockers has given Olsson a way, late in life, to fulfill that dream. She’s been coming to Hexter for three years now.
“I love children,” says Olsson, who has 14 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. “I just think they’re precious.”
Asked what she’d say to her own generation to encourage them to volunteer with Off Our Rockers, she says: “I’d just tell them how much fun it is.”
Fun and worthwhile. As little Josse Ganun prepares to leave their latest session, she calls out to him, “It was good to see you, Josse. And I’m glad you’re growing in wisdom and stature.”
