While her children were attending schools in Council Rock, Beryl Katz recognized a need for students to be more engaged in the classroom.  She also saw the possibility using the untapped resource of knowledge and experience in the local senior community.  She was compelled to create a program she called  Senior Adults for Greater Education.  S.A.G.E. came into being to serve as a mutually beneficial intergenerational system in which seniors and students could learn from each other and benefit from what each group had to offer.

 

Since 1999, Senior Adults for Greater Education has placed over 800 volunteers in over 100 classrooms throughout the Council Rock District. Seniors work with a teacher then directly with students in the classroom, focusing attention on either individual students or small groups.  The volunteers work in the schools for about an hour and a half each week, and everyone — the volunteers, teachers and students — embrace this unique opportunity to participate in a program that allows them to learn between and across generations.

 

The Council Rock School Board welcomed  S.A.G.E. and with the board's support, the organization grew to over 700 members in just three years. Now Senior Adults for Greater Education has over 100 weekly volunteers in its founding district of Council Rock.  They also have episodic volunteers who have helped organize a variety of intergenerational events such as spelling bees, choirs, dinners and computer training classes for seniors. With its home district of Council Rock doing so well, S.A.G.E. is expanding to the Bensalem and Neshaminy districts.  Already the group has 20 volunteers in an elementary school in Bensalem and 50 in seven schools in Neshaminy.

 

 

The biggest challenge that S.A.G.E. faces is one familiar to many nonprofits.  The group needs more funding. Although the school districts  pay a fee for the S.A.G.E. program, those fees do not cover the full cost of delivering service to the schools.

 

S.A.G.E. also needs volunteers. Student aides are needed for classrooms in the Council Rock, Bensalem and Neshaminy districts.  If you are interested in volunteering with the S.A.G.E. program and becoming an active and engaged member of your community, call Beryl Katz at 215.357.2332 or email beasage03@aol.com.