A sophomore at Furman University has created a program for students looking to spend some more quality time with grandma.

“I was really missing my grandma, and I wanted to reconnect with people in that age community,” said Christina Sturgeon, a sophomore philosophy and psychology major.

Furman University Student Exchanges (FUSE) allows the university about 30 students to “adopt” a resident of the Woodlands Retirement Community, an assisted living center located on the outskirts of the Greenville, South Carolina campus.

At the program’s helm is Sturgeon, who began FUSE last fall in conjunction with the Heller Service Corps, Furman’s on-campus community service agency.

Heller Service Corps connects students interested in community service to more than 50 needy companies, businesses and firms in the Greenville area. One of those 50 is the Woodlands Retirement Community, the other integral piece of the FUSE machine. It is from the Woodlands’ population of elderly folks that Furman students get to “adopt,” Sturgeon said.

Heller has long worked with the Woodlands Retirement Community, but not in ways as interactive as FUSE has allowed, Blake Reed, junior student director of the Heller Center, said.

Reed said he was blown away at the onset by Sturgeon’s passion for the project’s implementation.

“I don’t think we realized how excited she was and how much of a vision she had, because she’s turned the Woodlands project into something huge,” said Reed.

There are two types of students that apply to be a part of the FUSE program, Sturgeon said: those who are close to their grandparents and want to fill the void while away at college, and those who may not have grandparents anymore and want to foster a new relationship. Woodlands, Sturgeon added, is the perfect place for that.

“Especially at this particular retirement center, a lot of the residents are very active and are really eager to interact with the students,” she said.

To ensure adopted grandchildren are attentive toward and active with their adopted grandparents (and vice versa), Sturgeon said she created an application process that both students and the Woodlands residents must complete.

“A lot of people think it’s a cool idea, but it’s really easy for students to be overinvolved and not hold up their end, which isn’t fair to the grandparents,” Sturgeon said.

After applications are completed, students are matched with their respective grandmas and grandpas based on common academic and extracurricular interests. This way, hopefully the students in their early 20s can connect with the residents in their 70s and 80s — despite the age gap, Sturgeon said.

For Dallas and Leona Seiler, residents at the Woodlands and participants in the FUSE program, there was no issue hitting it off with their adopted “granddaughters.”

“We think that the girls have been able to relate to us and share problems with us,” Leona said. “We play cards, take them out to lunch and sometimes take them to dinner here. We just try and have a good time with them.”

On most days, residents and students create their own activity schedules. But, four times a year, FUSE organizes planned events, which include student or resident speed dating, a snowball dance at the university, a Mardi Gras party and an end of the year picnic, Sturgeon said.

And the Woodlands residents love it.

“We like to do things with younger people — it keeps us young,” Leona said.

Published on October 14, 2015 at 7:49 pm

Contact Brigid: brkenned@syr.edu