by Woody Weingarten, Bay City News
(L-R) Cove Elementary fifth grader Nora Zalewski speaks with an Áegis Living Corte Madera resident in Corte Madera, Calif., on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Kristy Dell via Bay City News)
“BINGO! OH, YEAH!”
That could have been anyone yelling at a bingo palace, but this time it was a resident senior at Áegis Living Center in Corte Madera.
In the Marin County assisted living memory care facility, the game’s not all about winning; it’s the basis of a learning exercise.
Kids from Kristy Dell’s fifth grade class at Cove Elementary School, on field trips, have been teaching the gray-hairs how to play, how to follow the rules and still enjoy the game, while they, in turn, learn how to really talk with old-timers and how to learn from them.
Dell’s brainchild, the project also led her charges to read poetry and share artwork with their elders, make greeting cards for them, present a Constitutional play and follow up with a song, and teach and fold origami.
(L-R) Elementary student Ben Dell explains how origami works to an Áegis Living Corte Madera resident in Corte Madera, Calif., on Monday, June 1, 2026. (Kristy Dell via Bay City News)
All this took place during six different visits last year, and Dell can’t wait for the next semester, which starts in August at the East Corte Madera school. Although she believes that a good mix already was provided her 41-student, double-sized class (in which she supervises two other teachers), she’s convinced that the variety of activities can be increased.
“And I’d like the class to get more of the residents’ stories,” she says. “This year, my first of doing it, it was very kid-heavy, and I’d like to make it more resident-heavy.”
Dell’s son, Ben, was in the pilot program. “There was no greater joy than seeing the seniors light up upon seeing us,” he says.
Classmate Marlowe Uchrin echoes the positivity: “I loved going to Áegis because it was a great way to talk with people in our community and learn about the people around me. Looking back on elementary school will be a memory that will stay with me for a long time.”
On the senior side, Nancy Morrow reports that “what I liked best was how honest the kids were, and how willing they were to share their ideas with older people. I thought they were terrific.”
And Susan Perdiue says “the best thing about the fifth graders coming here was that they were very open, friendly, and polite. They were well prepared, and it was clear that were having fun, too.”
Dell had accurately warned the students upfront that “singing a song or playing bingo may not be as easy as you think it is — some seniors may be grumpy, not hear well, or not move around well, and you may have to make space for wheelchairs, walkers and canes, and learn to remain in what might be an uncomfortable situation.”
She had the kids role-play to see how it would work, how their behavior could have a big impact on other people, and how they could develop leadership skills. She also hoped to weave in what she believed was being lost these days — a sense of morals and ethics.
She wasn’t sure, of course, that her intergenerational idea would work. “You can talk to the kids about something like kindness, conflict resolution, empathy, or good communication skills, but until you put their feet to the fire, you don’t know if they really learn those things.”
Áegis, which sits on East Paradise Drive, also offers residents the following, according to its website, www.aegisliving.com — chef-prepared meals, a full-service salon, a private theater, a library, daily on-site licensed nurses, pet-friendly apartments, and transportation to shops and restaurants, medical appointments, and the Moraga Country Club.”
Still, Dell admits she wasn’t 100% comfortable during the kids’ first visit. That’s because “although half were all smiles, some were curmudgeonly about having kids in their space. By the end, though, everyone wanted to know when we were coming back.”
Kristy Dell teaches class at Cove Elementary School in Corte Madera on Thursday, May 7, 2026. (Angela Roche via Bay City News)
One senior who’d been hesitant at first, she remembers, “cried when one of the kids gave him a drawing of a car from the 1930s and, not assuming his age, said, ‘Maybe your parents drove this car.’”
The kids, who also led a holiday toy drive in conjunction with the Central Marin Fire Department, sidestepped potential minor problems.
Dell and they had decided together that they should do Q&A sessions so residents could throw un-censored questions at them. But one asked, “What was the last time you got into trouble and how?” The kids were cautious enough not to reveal any dark secrets and instead “answered about having an extra scoop of ice cream, not brushing their teeth, or not practicing their instrument for 15 minutes.”
Dell “didn’t think to warn them not to bring up politics. The facility has a social chair who asked a political question that was a little tricky, and all bandwagoned against Trump.
(R-L) Elementary student Marlowe Uchrin sits with an Áegis Living Corte Madera resident during a round of BINGO in Corte Madera, Calif., on Monday, June 1, 2026. (Kristy Dell via Bay City News)
That, she added, “also led to a discussion when we got back to class and did a debriefing about never making assumptions about other people’s beliefs about politics, religion, or anything else — and watching out for regurgitating what your parents or older siblings say, or what you overhear from anyone else.”
Dell’s excitement about how her program worked is easily summed up. “Everything went smoothly, and my overall take was that the kids were thrilled because a lot of them overcame fears, a lot pushed themselves out of their comfort zones, and a lot got to see the instant gratification of what can come from their kindness, their words, or their action.”
She, too, learned from the intergenerational sessions — “that there’s still good in the world, post-Covid, despite the news being the way it is. The kids found a way they could help, be vulnerable and kind, and see that those actions will pay back ten-fold when it might initially feel cheesy or be something they don’t want to do.
“And I learned that I can foster that.”
This article was first published onLocalNewsMatters.org, a nonprofit site supported by Bay City News Foundation http://www.baycitynews.org/contact/.
Woody Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com. His books include Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer, aimed at male caregivers; MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of his newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that he co-authored with his then 8-year-old granddaughter.
