Kendal at Oberlin Blog

Jill Tvaroha, Kendal’s Wellness coordinator, provides residents with exercises and other tools to improve balance, maintain proper posture and prevent injuries.

Across town Jennifer Shults, a chiropractor and Oberlin College instructor, covers the same ground with college students in a class entitled “Body Re-Education and Functional Anatomy”

So Jill and Jennifer, who are friends, decided to team up.

Oberlin College students Mikaela de Lemos and Marika Mortimer-Lotke embarked on a 30-hour class project about the benefits of intergenerational learning. They visited Kendal at Oberlin’s Early Learning Center and interviewed both community residents and parents of the children. Here are their observations.

With a world-renowned Conservatory of Music that offers more than 500 performances annually, Oberlin is a popular destination for music lovers of all ages and sensibilities. 

This time of year, sailors, anglers and swimmers head off to Lake Erie, baseball fans and diners to downtown Cleveland, families and coaster enthusiasts to Cedar Point and music lovers to Blossom Museum Center. But Oberlin minus students is still a city steeped in entertainment and outdoor intergenerational fun, so let’s get started.

Father’s Day is kind of a Johnny-come-lately holiday, having been a national celebration only since 1972. Mother’s Day, on the other hand, got the country’s blessing years earlier.

I was born on Mother’s Day. Over the course of our 63 years together, the second Sunday in May meant dual celebrations, including Mother’s Day 1989, a week after I became a mother (pictured here). The best celebrations, my mother would tell you, were the ones we spent together.

Brendan Ortiz started working at Kendal in the dining rooms when he was a freshman at Oberlin High School. During the past four years he says he learned not just time management and responsibility, but also what life is like at Kendal.

My mother rarely turned down a dinner invitation or get-together with friends. In later years when she lamented that her “social calendar” was skimpy, she tried to find creative ways to fill it.

But like many older adults, my mother also cherished solitude, often with a good book, devotional or Lexi, her toy fox terrier, in her lap.

Northern Ohio residents can get away for a day and feel like they’ve been gone a week. We have a Great Lake in our backyard or we can step back in time, explore a big city and escape into nature.

During her first week on campus, Sarah Dalgleish visited Kendal at Oberlin for Oberlin College’s annual day of service.

“A cool place with amazing people,” she thought.

Sarah’s interest in Kendal continued to grow, and as she looked for a topic for her Winter Term 2018 project, she decided to combine her interest in radio journalism with older adults.