Connecting Generations – Adopt a Grand-buddy Program huge success on NSW Central Coast

“I think I have had a wonderful life and I am looking forward to any sort of surprises because I think I have seen it all, but you never have – there is always something new coming up…” not necessarily the words one might expect to hear from a person who has experienced 96 years of life, but it’s exactly that type of thinking that makes Eve, a resident from Anglican Care, and four year old Limah such good friends – they both love surprises. 

Both Eve and Limah are participating in a KIDS Foundation program known as Connecting Generations – Adopt a Grand-buddy which brings together vulnerable members of the community to visit each other 12 times a year to help with socialisation, safety education and physical and emotional wellbeing.

“It’s just wonderful being amongst the little ones,” Eve told local publication Newcastle Weekly.  

“We don’t have contact with [kids] anymore unless you have little ones in the family, it’s just so beautiful to see them.”

KIDS Foundation CEO Janine Buesnel outlined the purpose of the program, explaining that it helps to “teach safety so the kids are a little more risk aware to keep themselves and their friends and family safe and for the older people it helps with their social isolation and their engagement in the community.”

Connecting Generations – Adopt a Grand-buddy first launched 28 years ago and has come to Newcastle through the support of the Newcastle Permanent Charitable Foundation via an $81,000 funding boost.

KIDS Foundation has matched 65 early education childhood centres with aged care facilities throughout New South Wales to provide this program free of charge.

For more information about the work of KIDS Foundation, please see here. To access the original coverage of this piece, see here.