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Comment by fullstop | Hacker News Reader

Before getting tied up with bureaucratic nonsense my daughter was looking at starting a "borrow a grandma / grandpa" club at her university. The idea was to connect students with elderly people who are lonely, and they could have tea / coffee together. The elderly get to be social with a younger generation, and the younger generation gets to understand the struggles that a lot of elderly people face.

I think that the university was concerned with liability. I still think that it's a good idea.

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There is an organization doing this in Spain, Adopta un Abuelo: https://www.eib.org/en/stories/isolation-elderly

https://adoptaunabuelo.org

That's awesome, and fitting, since my daughter has an Abuela. :-)

Did your daughter talk to a few local senior citizen agencies or nursing homes? Last I knew, quite a few of those are interested in "just visit occasionally" volunteers. And if another org (which specialized in seniors) was handling that end of things, the U might not be so hung up on allowing the club.

Or, "we're adults, just do it". The U can't actually stop of-age students from volunteering for local organizations, or joining churches, or playing soccer in a city park.

Right, she has done that in the past. Her goal was to start a club so that it would persist long after she graduated.

Old people's homes are very welcoming to ANYONE willing to spend time with the residents. No need to join a club: pick up the phone or stop by and ask if they would like your time. I guarantee the answer will be, "When can you start?"

Right, she has done that, but she wanted to start a club so that it could continue after she's graduated.

Make the club HQ the old people's home.

Maybe a scheduled get togethers of a retirement home group with a that student org either at the home or the university could work. That way it's easier to have a person trained to chaperone, a more controlled environment, and reduced general overhead for planning.

A liability for having tea with elderly citizens?

Liability that one of them will don a Robert De Niro grin and say, “hey kid, wanna get out of here?” and the youth will oblige by lowering the roof on the GT and cranking up Deep Purple’s Highway Star as they peel rubber from beneath the pastel peach awning, thousands of foot pounds of torque expressing a shared joy in a cloud of smoke and a squeal of delight.

Holy... That just unlocked a memory. When I was a 10 y.o. kid and a member of Young Pioneers organization in the late Soviet Union, we had a routine elderly care assignment. There was literally a task "to help N lonely elderly people next week"! We were split in pairs and provided with a list of addresses of nearby "targets" and a general guidance on what this help may constitute, like helping them with groceries, walking a dog, house cleaning, etc. And I remember there was a nice old lady who were treating us with tea and pies, and showing us some old photos, and who we then visited few times outside of the assignment just because she welcomed us and we liked it there. For me it was just some secondary quest that I barely registered and completely forgot about until now, but now I wonder if it was a big deal for her

> A liability for having tea with elderly citizens?

In their homes? It's a mountain of liability. The elderly tend to be a combination of paranoid and senile.

The first time they misplace a checkbook or forget some valuable was already given to some grandchild they'll accuse the most recent new guest in memory of stealing.

And that's just one of an infinite number of possibilities having spent zero time dwelling on it.

no wonder they are all lonely those pesky old folks!

There's a lot of aspects here, such as where they would meet up, etc. If it's on school property and something happens, for example. Additionally there are restrictions for clubs operating off-campus. I don't know, it was seemingly more complicated than any of us had anticipated.

If you ask, the answer will always be No.

If you have sufficient money such that litigating against you is worth it, then playing defense is necessary. Universities surely qualify.

There's plenty of programs that do just that in the US, so maybe the university just didn't want to deal with the liability if someone else already is (if it was a US university, of course).

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