Skip to content
Education
Link copied to clipboard

Cut in federal aid imperils Woodbury senior program

Senior citizen Dorothy Smith and high school freshman Brock Juliano might not be your first guess for geek comrades-in-arms. But make no mistake - they're a team.

At Woodbury High School, Margaret Garcia, left, receives help from Angel Vega, a ninth grader. (Charles Fox / Staff Photographer)
At Woodbury High School, Margaret Garcia, left, receives help from Angel Vega, a ninth grader. (Charles Fox / Staff Photographer)Read more

Senior citizen Dorothy Smith and high school freshman Brock Juliano might not be your first guess for geek comrades-in-arms. But make no mistake - they're a team.

"Brock, why is that blinking?" Smith asked, nodding at the button flashing on the computer screen before her.

"It usually means it wants you to click on it," Juliano said.

"See, I can ask him anything," Smith said, beaming.

Under Juliano's able and patient tutelage - he's 14; he was born to this stuff - Smith has gone from cyber-neophyte to mouse jockey through Golden Bytes, a free after-school computer class started in November at Woodbury High School.

So far, Smith has e-mailed jokes to a friend, put together a computer slide show, and designed a business card. What's more, this retired math teacher's time with students like Juliano has altered her opinion of today's youth.

"Oh, wow, this has really turned my head," the Gibbsboro resident said. "I didn't know if I was going to like this. But then we got to know each other."

Indeed, what began as a way for district freshmen to meet a new service requirement and for seniors to build computer acumen has become a bridge across the generations and proved that you're never too old - or young - to learn.

"Oh, gosh, it is so cool," said Kathryn Stalter-Allen, Woodbury's Option II coordinator, in charge of out-of-class learning.

Stalter-Allen won a grant through a federal agency, Learn and Serve America, to create the program, but she had concerns.

For one thing, quite a few freshmen resented the new requirement. Another cause for trepidation was what Stalter-Allen calls "the digital divide."

"There was a bit of a fracture between our teenagers and our seniors," she said. Smith, 65, was not the only one less than thrilled with today's teenagers. And some teens were not into the older generation.

So before the first Golden Bytes class, the young volunteers - "freshman buddies," they are called - got an education in manners, holding doors for the "senior students," helping with their coats, making conversation beyond typically teenage one-word answers.

There were rules. No cellphones, for one. Stalter-Allen would teach, and when possible, each senior would have a student helper. But students were not to take over the keyboard. They had to let the seniors do the lesson work.

Before long, teens and seniors started to warm toward one another. The seniors, some of whom had taken paid computer classes without good results, were tickled that they were actually learning, thanks to Stalter-Allen's gentle pace and help from the nice young people.

"I call them my young geniuses," said Erma Shorts, 66, a retired nurse from Woodbury.

"We praise them, they praise us," said Craig Marks, a 17-year-old junior and artist who volunteers but doesn't have to.

The same goes for Owen Rhodes, 16 and a sophomore. At first, he had misgivings.

"But once you get to know them, they're just regular," said Rhodes, who wants to be a chef. "They have cool stories."

Meanwhile, the computer skills that seem to come so easily to the teens are opening new vistas for the seniors.

"It's exciting," said Carol Robinson, 67, a retired crossing guard from Deptford who got a computer for her last birthday but didn't know how to use it until taking part in Golden Bytes.

Thanks to e-mail, it's easier to reach her adult children.

"They all text. They don't answer the phone," she said.

Robinson is also computerizing her culinary repertoire. Next time she's asked for the recipe for her bravura broccoli salad or her coveted cinnamon buns, a click will do it.

There's so much more she could learn, but she and her fellow senior students are concerned they won't get a chance to. They recently learned that the federal government will not fund Learn and Serve America next year. That will affect more than 115 service-learning programs in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

In New Jersey, the Governor's Office of Volunteerism, conduit for the federal aid, will continue to offer technical support but cannot make up for the lost money, director Rowena Madden said.

Some of the more established programs likely will continue, but Madden said the loss of funding may hurt the newer programs - including Woodbury's.

Stalter-Allen said that the federal grant had been for $14,000 a year for two years, but that the program could survive on less if she can find a funder.

"I don't know what we're going to do, but we're going to be optimistic," she said.

Some seniors talked about contacting their elected officials, or paying for the classes.

"It's a shame," said Barbara Eckert, 66, a former hospital technician who lives in Deptford and downloads music by computer for her line-dance classes. "They say adults are living longer. Why shouldn't we continue to learn?"

Margaret Garcia, a retired art teacher in her 80s, loves being able to get information. In a recent class, Angel Vega, 16, showed Garcia, who is Latina in married name only, how to learn Spanish via computer.

"It's such an opportunity," she said of the class. "I would hate to see it get lost."

Vega, who wants to be a police officer, agreed. If the program is around next year, he plans to return by choice.

"I love it," he said. "I love how the people treat me and how I treat them."