Senior Center intergenerational event helps support Smith Memorial Playground Time Capsule Project

NORTH PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Paid Sponsor Partnership: Philadelphia Corporation for Aging

Members of the Martin Luther King Older Adult Center welcomed excited campers from the Smith Memorial Playground over to their house to play.

Friends were made as old-school toys and games brought smiles to both generations, just like the Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse has done for more than a century.

"We are excited to be over 125 years old. We opened up in 1899," says Frances Hoover, Executive Director of the Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse. "The mission of Smith Playground is to promote and provide opportunities for free unstructured play."

The event kicked off a time capsule project for the playground.

"The kids are between six and ten years old," says Hoover. "We're going to ask for letters, drawings, poems."

"And what's exciting is that many of the older adults are going to be able to perhaps give them some insight on what life was like 50 years ago," says Bill Conallen, Public Relations Specialist for Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA)

Philadelphia Corporation for Aging helped to arrange the special day.

"Our mission is to serve older Philadelphians with programs that provide for independence, dignity, as well as community and connection," he says.

Retired music teacher James Cauley played UNO with campers.

"It was really interesting seeing them using their problem-solving skills," says Cauley, member and Advisory Council President of the Martin Luther King Older Adult Center. "They taught me."

"We live in a kind of age of screens, tech and schedules, and what's great about an event like this is it allows us to come together, interact face to face," says Conallen.

"Having this opportunity to pair them up with older adults is just amazing," says Hoover. "When they're together and they start talking and finding out, not only what's different, but how much they have in common as well."

"Our birthday is in the same month and we both like money," says Everette Williams, a camper at the Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse.

The hope is that these connections endure through the time capsule project.

Hoover says they're going to have a ceremony to bury it in November and they plan to place it next to "one of their most iconic pieces of play equipment," which is the giant wooden slide.

"They will open up that time capsule 50 years from now at Smith Playground," says Conallen. "Children here today will be older adults."

Hoover says the hope is that when these children return for the opening of the time capsule, they'll do so with their children and grandchildren.

"It should be a special moment for them," she says.

For more information:

Martin Luther King Older Adult Center
Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse

Martin Luther King Older Adult Center
2100 Cecil B. Moore Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19121