> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.whatsgoingrighttoday.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # At This Summer Camp, Childhood and Old Age Meet in the Middle - URL: https://www.whatsgoingrighttoday.com/at-this-summer-camp-childhood-and-old-age-meet-in-the-middle/ - Published: 2026-09-05T22:35:19.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-05T22:35:19.000Z - Description: At Methuen Village, children and senior residents spent one day each week baking, painting, planting and building friendships across generations. - Author: Mark St Jean - Tags: Humanity *At Methuen Village, children and senior residents spent one day each week baking, painting, planting and building friendships across generations.* At Methuen Village in Massachusetts, summer camp had no age limit. Once a week this summer, children of staff members joined residents in the community’s independent-living, assisted-living and memory-support programs. They were not there simply to wait for their parents’ workday to end. They came to spend time with the people who lived there. Together they baked cookies, painted, worked on planting projects and welcomed visits from service dogs. Methuen Life captured one small scene from the program: resident Helen Hills and Lucas Pare working side by side with plants and potting soil. None of this required a scientific breakthrough, a major donation or a crisis. It required someone to notice that people at opposite ends of life might have something to give one another. ## What went right Ashley Gonzalez, Methuen Village’s Enriched Life Director, started the program after seeing the connections her own children formed with residents. She turned that experience into a weekly summer tradition open to other employees’ children. The choice changed the shape of an ordinary day. A workplace became a kind of camp. A senior-living community became a place where children could make friends. Activities that might otherwise have been separated by age became shared experiences. For the children, the residents were not an abstract group called “seniors.” They were people to mix batter with, paint beside and learn from. For residents, the program brought the energy and curiosity of childhood into their regular routines. And because the children returned each week, the connections had room to become more than a single scheduled visit. Relationships often grow through ordinary moments: remembering a name, returning to an unfinished painting and checking whether something planted together has begun to grow. ## Why connection matters Modern life often keeps generations apart. Children spend much of their time with children. Working adults spend theirs with other adults. Older people—particularly those in residential communities—can become separated from the everyday noise, questions and motion of younger lives. The World Health Organization identifies loneliness and social isolation as important risks to mental health in later life. It also points to meaningful social activities, including intergenerational programs, as one way communities can strengthen connection and well-being. Research into the measurable effects of specific intergenerational programs is still developing. A 2023 Campbell systematic review found that such programs may offer small benefits for older adults’ self-esteem and depression, while cautioning that the evidence remains limited and inconsistent. That uncertainty is worth stating honestly. But not every worthwhile human experience needs to begin as a medical treatment or end as a statistic. The value visible in Methuen is simpler: people were given a reason and a place to know one another. ## A small idea worth repeating The program did not require a new building or a national organization. It used a place, people and summer activities that were already available, then removed the invisible line that so often keeps generations apart. That makes the idea repeatable. Senior centers, libraries, schools, workplaces and neighborhoods all contain people whose paths rarely cross, even when they live only minutes apart. Shared art, music, gardening, cooking and storytelling can give them somewhere to begin. The phrase “it takes a village” is often used when adults talk about raising children. Methuen Village added something important to it: the village can also give children a chance to know the people who came before them—and give older people a continuing place within the life of the village. What went right in Methuen was not complicated. Someone made room. Children arrived. Residents welcomed them. And, one ordinary week at a time, strangers of different generations had the chance to become part of one another’s lives. ## Sources and further reading - [“An Intergenerational Summer,” Methuen Life](https://methuenlife.com/an-intergenerational-summer/?ref=whatsgoingrighttoday.com) - [“Summer Camp Program Connects Generations at Methuen Village,” Methuen Village](https://www.seniorlivingresidences.com/communities/methuen-village/news/summer-camp-program/?ref=whatsgoingrighttoday.com) - [“Mental health of older adults,” World Health Organization](https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-health-of-older-adults?ref=whatsgoingrighttoday.com) - [“Intergenerational activities may improve the wellbeing and mental health of older people,” Campbell Collaboration](https://www.campbellcollaboration.org/review/intergenerational-activities-wellbeing-and-mental-health-of-older-people/?ref=whatsgoingrighttoday.com) *This article is an independent synthesis based on the sources above.* *Representative feature image: an older man and a boy tending plants together.* [*Photo by OPPO Find X5 Pro on Unsplash*](https://unsplash.com/photos/a-man-and-a-child-looking-at-a-plant-Nc-hc5g5yhw?ref=whatsgoingrighttoday.com)*, used under the* [*Unsplash License*](https://unsplash.com/license?ref=whatsgoingrighttoday.com)*. The people pictured are not participants in the Methuen Village program.*