Westfield High School students document Armbrook seniors' life stories through shared artifacts
The intergenerational program pairs 12 Armbrook seniors with 26 high school freshmen to share personal artifacts and stories.
WESTFIELD — For the third consecutive year, seniors at Armbrook Village have partnered with Westfield High School students in the "Past Meets Present" program, an initiative that pairs older residents with younger learners to exchange stories and explore personal artifacts.
Twenty-six freshmen in social studies teacher Nicole Hamel's AP History class invited 12 Armbrook seniors to the school over several visits, asking them to bring objects of personal significance. Each senior was paired with a student who researched the artifacts and their historical context, then presented their findings in a museum-style exhibit to seniors, faculty, and family members.
According to Jayda Handzel, Armbrook's Director of Community Relations, the program allows "today's seniors and students to connect and learn from one another's experiences." She noted that students deepened their history knowledge while seniors learned about their younger neighbors' experiences, advancing Armbrook Village's goal of building community connection.
George Symborski, originally from Northampton, brought a basketball he won in a Northampton YMCA league championship during his high school years. He acknowledged to the students that his strength as a player lay in rebounding rather than scoring.
Lori Loiselle from Southampton brought a fuchsia-colored scarf and memorabilia from the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, which she attended with her best friend Jane, the aunt of figure skater Nancy Kerrigan. Kerrigan won a silver medal at those Games.
Bea Szenda presented the American flag from her husband's military funeral. Geraldine Ognibene brought a Lifetime Achievement Award she received from President Joe Biden in 2022, recognizing her decades of volunteer work including knitting 97 chemo blankets and over 1,000 infant hats for babies at Cooley Dickinson Hospital.
According to the students' research, recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award must have documented at least 4,000 volunteer hours. The award, the highest tier of the President's Volunteer Service Award program established in 2003, comes with a personalized certificate, official pin, medallion, and congratulatory letter from the sitting president.
The Past Meets Present initiative began in 2024 when Armbrook Village partnered with Hamel's class to introduce Dementia Friendly training to younger generations. Armbrook has worked since 2014 to make Westfield the first dementia-friendly city on the East Coast, hosting trainings for students, healthcare workers, and the public.
Handzel said the program "cultivates a sense of purpose within our residents" while teaching students "empathy, patience, and a deeper understanding of how the things that they learn about in textbooks actually were real-life experiences."