From left: Mayra Caballero, Yesenia Granados-Martinez, Lori Thompson, Karen Downing and Erika Roehrs shared a “Conversation Across Generations” last Thursday at WesleyLife’s Meal on Wheels headquarters. (Photos: Michael Morain)
By Michael Morain
Editor
There’s something to be said for the old one-room schoolhouses, with all the grades tossed in together. Older and younger students learned from each other.
An event series called “Conversations Across Generations” takes things a step further. Guests from different chapters of life gather at the WesleyLife Meals on Wheels headquarters, upstairs from Hugo’s Wood-Fired Kitchen near the Drake University campus. It’s a convenient spot for Drake students, who participate with a nudge from the university’s Office of Community Engaged Learning.
At a session on Thursday, about 50 registered guests grabbed free, pre-made rice bowls before taking a seat at tables marked with colored circles that matched their color-coded nametags: green for Gen Z, orange for Millennials, yellow for Gen X and so on.
In her welcome remarks, Shannon Draayer, WesleyLife’s executive director for community nutrition, talked up the benefits of meaningful interactions with people of different ages outside of immediate family. Research suggests those exchanges promote overall happiness and well-being. They also reduce the ageism that permeates American culture.
“In your day-to-day routine, who are you learning from? What perspectives are you hearing?” she asked the group.
At last week’s meal, those perspectives focused on Latin American art. Inbal Mazar, who teaches Spanish at Drake, and Mia Buch from the Des Moines Art Center presented a few slides of Art Center works by Latino artists that Mazar’s students had studied throughout the semester.
The students then guided each table through a series of open-ended questions: What’s the first thing you notice in this painting? How does reflects the artist’s cultural roots? Would you hang it up in your living room?
None of the questions required prior expertise, and there were no wrong answers. Everybody had a chance to chime in.
“As a museum educator, it’s heartwarming to see people discussing art,” said Buch (pictured). She contrasted the setting with the museum, where she often sees couples quietly moving through the galleries, dutifully reading the labels, spending a few seconds with each work of art before shuffling out the door.
“Art deserves to be engaged with,” she said. Here, “there are bridges that get connected, ideas you couldn’t have discovered on your own.”
At the end of the meal, a participant named John Mercuris with a blue Boomer nametag, told the crowd how much he enjoyed the experience.
“I wasn’t going to come here today, but my daughter signed me up,” he said. “I’m very happy that I came. I really am.”
This season’s final conversation, about family dynamics in Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” is set for 9:30-10:45 a.m. May 4 with a discussion led by Drake students and associate professor Jeanette Tran from the English department.
