Volunteer Program That Puts Senior Citizens In Classrooms Gets National Recognition

Senior Adults for Greater Education, or SAGE, is a Bucks County volunteer organization made up of over 200 senior citizen volunteers who go into classrooms to assist teachers and students during the school year.

SAGE has been putting volunteers in Bucks County schools – including Council Rock, Hatboro-Horsham, New Hope-Solebury, and Saint Andrew schools –since 1998 and it recently earned national recognition for its efforts to help the education community.

Generations United recognized SAGE as a 2017 “Program of Distinction” for its work in bridging the generation gap in a mutually beneficial manner for students, teachers, and seniors.

"It shows what we do has a lasting impact," SAGE Founder Beryl Katz said. That we have an impact on students, teachers, volunteers, and administrators."

While the national recognition has no perks such as money, Katz said being recognized by a group like Generations United will help propel SAGE into other schools.

"In going forward, our main goal to get into other districts," Katz said "It gets them confidence in us and it gives us credibility."

Katz said SAGE had to meet a lot of requirement to earn the recognition, saying the SAGE team went through a rigorous applications.

"It shows me all the years of doing this – all the preparation, all the training, all the data analysis – pays off," she said.

She said she's particularly proud of the SAGE team meeting all the training and new clearances required by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Katz said the next training volunteers will receive will be on bullying, which is fitting for SAGE because Katz said the program is academic and social in nature.

Not only do the students learn valuable life lessons from the 55 years and older volunteers, but the volunteers themselves also benefit from spending time with students and teachers.

"Kids get a lot form older people," she said. "When we send volunteers into classrooms, we tell them to find points of commonality. The barriers of age come down when you have that relationship.

Katz said one volunteer told her she loves walking into the school and getting hugs from students she had in the classroom's in which she was a volunteer.

Katz also said the volunteers and teachers often bond, saying some volunteer-teacher pairs have been together since the programs inception.

When asked to share some stories about students reactions to the program, Katz said privacy policies don't allow for those details to be shared. However, she offered up one anecdote to highlight the impact SAGE volunteers can have on students.

She said on classroom volunteer was in their classroom on a Thursday and died on the following Saturday.

Katz said the volunteers casket was covered in letters from the students who wanted to show their appreciation for the volunteer.

"The impact he had on the kids was really amazing," she said.

Katz said another volunteer who had just lost his wife was working with a teacher who lost her husband, saying the pair supported each other in their trying times.

"It's a win-win-win," she said of the volunteer-teacher-student dynamic.

Generations United’s mission is to improve the lives of children, youth, and older adults through intergenerational collaboration, public policies and programs for the enduring benefit of all.

Image courtesy of SAGE