Adopt A Grandparent

The Adopt-A-Grandparent program is a Christian volunteer-based organization that matches adults with lonely or home bound senior citizens. Volunteers are asked to befriend and spend time with their adopted grandparents. This is not a legal adoption as much as a symbolic relative to the adoption ideology.

The Adopt-A-Grandparent organization regularly hosts picnics, parties and other mixers to encourage seniors and their adoptive volunteers to get out of the house. There are also satellite programs with similar goals and events as the Adopt-A-Grandparent organization. Local nursing homes may have programs that match young volunteers from the community with senior citizens in need of company. Company may involve in-person visits, phone calls, attending events at the nursing home or in the community. To many of these older citizens donating time to them is far more valuable than donations of money or goods to the nursing home. Volunteers may also be pleasantly surprised by how much Adopt-A-Grandparent can affect them. Hearing the stories their "grandparent" tells as well as the wisdom and grace of old age is something some people find inspiring.

For those who may not have the time to fully commit to adopting a grandparent, the United States has a nationally recognized National Grandparent Day on the first Sunday after Labor Day. This isn't a federal holiday, but stresses the importance of tradition and the age-old value of respecting one's elders and generations passed.