IntergenConnect!

Mission: The mission of IntergenConnect! is to build meaningful relationships/connections between current Oberlin students and Kendal at Oberlin residents, such that there is a broad intergenerational community of friends in Oberlin who will support each other going forward.      

Vision: We provide opportunities to cultivate one-on-one and small group connections that last during a student’s time at Oberlin and beyond.

We combine play with seriousness, and prescribed conversation with flexibility, in order to allow conversationalists of all styles to shine and to allow for multiple types of relationships to be built.  We share all programming and leadership responsibilities between generations. Intergenerational partnership forms the backbone of our planning committee. We seek consensus around all significant decisions and developments within the program. No one voice is more important than any other.  Participant (and team) feedback affects the ongoing development of the program. If it’s not fun, we won’t do it! We prioritize fun, laughter, joy, and trust in each other (for example, no matter how short on time we are, we always start our meetings with a silly check-in question).  Rather than assigning students and Kendal residents to each other, we attend to the relationships that are already growing organically within the group. We organize introductions and icebreakers in order to expose participants to each other without specifically assigning pairs. Then, if pairings are created later, participants create the pairings themselves by naturally gravitating towards whomever they are interested in. It is always optional and never required to spend time with one another outside of events. Our mixers are always designed to take into account the mobility, hearing, and other needs of our participants. We prioritize universal design so that no one type of needs is highlighted, and our events are accessible to all.  We always prioritize the self-care of our planning committee and keep people who cannot attend every meeting in the loop. We build enough trust in one another so that when someone is absent, they are confident that the work will continue moving forward with our shared values and vision.  We are confident that our different generations will be able to find interests in common, allowing them to connect in satisfying ways - and we also ask questions for the groups to enjoy each other’s unique differences.  Food builds community. We stay open to the surprises that come along the way. We always debrief and process together after an event. We don’t make people do something without testing it ourselves (e.g. we tried out the questions and timing of our Two Truths and a Lie exercise before the event).

Non-negotiables: We share all programming and leadership responsibilities between generations. Intergenerational partnership forms the backbone of our planning committee’s work. The ICPT (IntergenConnect! Planning Team) and IntergenConnect! participants (as opposed to administrators or governing bodies at Oberlin College or Kendal) are responsible for program development and changes.   We reserve the right to be creative - to experiment and change things as we go.