Most Thursday afternoons the Gordon JCC is brimming with activity as the TGIT senior program gets underway. The program includes lunch followed by entertainment ranging from Grammy award winning performers to authors, historians, an ongoing senior health series, and more. The weekly program even includes transportation in the form of the Shalom Taxi service to transport some of the participants to the lunch. “The weekly lunch serves as an informative and lively social event for seniors in the community who might otherwise be more isolated or miss a hot meal,” says Carrie Mills, the older adult program manager for the Gordon JCC.
This program, and many others, are funded in part by grants from The Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville. According to Michal Becker, director of impact and planning for the Federation, “Helping seniors is a big part of our mission to help the Jewish community locally.”
This year, grants for senior programming total approximately $134,000. Included along with the TGIT program is Shalom Taxi service, monthly art gallery showings, Lunch & Learn at West End Synagogue, services offered through Congregation Micah and the Gordon JCC. “We have a wide variety of offerings to try and reach a diverse population of seniors,” says Becker.
The Gordon JCC is home to monthly art gallery showings. There are four main galleries, three of which are changed monthly to provide a dynamic, stimulating environment. The building’s senior lounge features the Senior Art Gallery, and senior artists and crafts people are also shown in the other galleries.
Each month, there is a free artist’s reception, open to the public, that includes things like a DJ, henna artist, local pop-up shops, and even a dance party to get everyone moving. Of course, there is also plenty of snacks and beverages, and the artists are there to meet with the community. Mills says, “The art receptions always attract many seniors in the community who come to socialize.”
At West End Synagogue, monthly Learn and Lunch events draw a diverse array of speakers According to Marc Jacobs, engagement and program director at WES, “The Learn and Lunch program provides our senior community with opportunities to connect not only with each other but with a diverse group of speakers. This year we have been very lucky to have speakers from our own Nashville community as well as speakers from across the United States and Canada, we have been able to welcome speakers from as far away as Israel and Uganda.” He says the speakers give community members new insights into the ways they can be involved both locally and in the global Jewish world.
During the recent lunch featuring a rabbi from Uganda, the students from Kehilla High School, now housed at WES, joined the seniors. Debby Wiston, executive director at WES says, “It provided for a very dynamic, intergenerational program.”
The benefits of participating in the senior programs sometimes even go beyond the obvious. Mills says the regulars at the Gordon JCC are a close knit group that really cares for each other. She says when her son become a Bar Mitzvah years ago, the seniors did all the cooking. “It was better than any caterer I could have brought in,” she says, “They are a loving and caring group of people. Bright, smart, well informed and interested in the world and life around them.”
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