76-7 Position Paper – SENIOR CITIZENS

WHEREAS senior citizens often do not get the attention that they deserve, and should get; and

WHEREAS senior citizens at times are very lonely and sometimes do not have someone to turn to for help; and

WHEREAS at the 1975 national LSM conference it was resolved that local LSM groups be encouraged to look toward the elderly in their own communities to understand their situations, so that they may relate to them in just and loving ways as local situations require, and uphold and support them in prayer; then

LET IT BE RESOLVED that if there is a senior citizen group in or near a town in which LSM is located, the LSM students will volunteer their services for at least one project; and

LET IT BE RESOLVED that if there isn’t a senior citizen center near a town in which LSM is located, the LSM students be urged to sponsor at least on project to reach senior citizens in their community; and

LET IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED that the LSM group from Minot State will be responsible for sending information and resource material on this subject to the LSM National office in order to begin a resource bank, and that other groups be encouraged to share their resources also, so that other groups may obtain this information from the national office (resource bank).

ACTIONS TAKEN:

IN REGARDS TO THE POSITION PAPER THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES OCCURRED ON LOCAL CAMPUSES…..

..Students participated in “Adopt a Grandparent” program which provided a weekly visitor for elderly persons in a local retirement home who did not have regular visitors or family.

..Students made bi-weekly visits to the state hospital’s geriatrics ward.

RESOURCES AVAILABLE:

FILMS

PEEGE   28 minutes, color, rental $40, available from Augsburg Publishing House – Film Department, 426 South Fifth Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.

Before you show this film, be sure you have a goodly supply of hankies available.  After you slow it, plan on leaving the lights off for a while.  PEEGE causes people to cry.  I cried when I saw it; chances are you will too.

However, before you write it off as just another “tear-jerker,” let me assure you it is not.  It is a tender, lovingly-made film that does a masterful job of involving the viewer emotionally without falsely manipulating those emotions.  The tears are good tears.  The crying is celebrative.

(Ron Birk:  THE CIRCLE, November 1976)

MINNIE REMEMBERS   5 minutes, color, rental $12.50, available from Mass Media Ministries, 2126 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218.

A beautiful, touching poem has been made into a sensitive, moving film.  An elderly woman shares thoughts about her loneliness, her need to be touched, her loss of identity.

(Ron Birk:  THE CIRLCE, April 1977)