A popular and innovative seniors art program is coming back to St. James’ Anglican Church this spring.
The Helping Elders With Arts (HeARTS) program, run by the Orillia and District Arts Council (ODAC), successfully obtained a $25,000 federal grant through the New Horizons for Seniors Program.
The program’s inaugural run, which began last September, brought art, dance, and art history lectures together through twice-per-week gatherings that featured an ever-changing array of guest speakers and artists, forms of art to engage in, and an opportunity to get active.
Each gathering featured a new theme, such as a dance session based in mirroring, paired with a lecture on Picasso and a self-portrait session. A variety of guest artists — and even a harp player during the Vincent Van Gogh session — were brought to the program to enrich its sessions.
The program’s second installment will run on Tuesdays and Thursdays through May and June, and then from September through December, with drop-in sessions from 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., and guided sessions from 1 p.m. to 3:45 p.m..
The program began with the desire to engage vulnerable groups, and over the course of its first run, it grew in popularity and became an important social outing for its participants, organizers said.
“The theme is art, but it's more like a vehicle or reason to get together,” said HeARTS art facilitator Sukhi Kaur. “It's a social thing, right? The main point of the grant is to combat social isolation.”
Participants in the program’s first run agree, and are looking forward to its return.
“You're seeing your friends that you make relationships with,” said participant Donna Howlett. “For people that don't get out, if they don't have it, it's depressing.”
“Just getting out here made all the difference in the world to me because I look so forward to it,” said participant Dale Lynch.
ODAC’s Christine Hager said her organization has plans to bring seniors from local retirement homes into the next session's programs, as well.
“We actually connected with the retirement homes in the city, … and quite a few of them were interested, but there was the issue of transportation. This time we think we've latched on to a solution for that, so we’ll be able to bring them in here," she said, noting they will offer "limited transportation within budget parameters."
Another focus of the program has been fostering inter-generational connections, organizers said. Social Service Worker students from Georgian College had the opportunity to do their placements in the program’s first run, and the hope is to bring them back again.
For Lynch, a former teacher, getting to be around young people again has meant a lot.
“It wasn't so much the art, or meeting people that were my age – it was meeting young people because I was a teacher for 35 years,” she said.
Beyond simply offering classes, the opportunity to get together and learn about a variety of art disciplines has made the program special, Kaur said, adding that programming is formed with participant input in mind.
“When you hear ‘seniors art’ program, there's been so many iterations of that in the community, but I really feel like what we've created here is something fresh and special,” she said. “When we were developing this program, we really wanted seniors’ input in this. We don't want to just assume that we know what you want and what's best for you.”
Simcoe North MP Adam Chambers said programs like HeARTS are what the New Horizons for Seniors grant is all about.
“This would be one of (the programs) that you can say (has) significant benefits beyond just providing programming for a period of time,” he said. “If people are looking forward to it, they're getting a lot of enjoyment out of it, they're making relationships, maybe new friends, I mean, you're strengthening the community.”
The program offers a drop-in session through the morning, which is available to all, and a guided session in the afternoons that requires registration.
Seniors interested in signing up for the program may do so at [email protected].
