Beginning in 1975, only 20 years after the school’s opening, the Senior Citizen Luncheon was created to connect WJ students to Montgomery County’s older population. After a three-year pause due to COVID-19, WJ reopened its doors to the seniors last year the Community Helpers (CoHe) club, formerly Key Club, hosted its 46th luncheon on Nov. 21 with the help of a variety of WJ organizations.

Planning began at the start of this school year for CoHe officers, starting with reaching out to Montgomery County recreational centers and senior citizen homes. The recreational centers allow any senior citizen who regularly attends a rec center to sign up and attend the luncheon, with a total of seven institutions being invited and approximately 140 seniors attending.

“I inherited the list [of senior citizen homes and recreational centers] from the teachers who’ve done this in the past,” CoHe sponsor Dr. Katharina Matro said. “It’s essentially the places that we have established relationships with. They know how it works, they know what to do, they know to book transportation because we don’t provide that, and they anticipate it coming. Starting in August and September, I get inquiries [asking] when it is happening.”

The luncheon not only unites students with older Montgomery County citizens but also brings the WJ community together. With the Learning for Independence (LFI) classes creating the decorations, choir, Madrigals and Jazz band performing, as well as 90 total student volunteers from the Leadership class, CoHe and other clubs, the Luncheon unites and represents all the facets of WJ.

“For the club, we require all of our members to volunteer, and Mallory [Booth, my co-president] has another club, Small Things Matter, so there’s a lot of overlap there, and a lot of people seemed really interested [to participate],” senior and CoHe co-president Kansiri Sukduang said. “There was a lot more interest this year than I thought there would be.”

At the luncheon, student volunteers pick to be a greeter or a server. Servers are assigned specific tables and cater to the senior citizens’ needs, such as bringing them coffee, tea or water, as well as serving them dinner and dessert.

“As a server, I first help greet senior citizens off the bus, and I take them to the front and help them sign in and get their name tags,” senior Julin Marcelino-White said. “I also help them find a seat with their friends to ensure they’re comfortable with where they’re sitting. [Also, I] just constantly check in on the senior citizens because once they have their food or drinks, it doesn’t mean you’re just done. Both years I loved being a server because I was able to engage in quick little chats with the citizens while also making people happy with all the food.”

Two greeters sit with seniors at each table, with their only duty being to converse with the seniors, learning and discussing whatever they like.

“My favorite part of the luncheon is getting to know the older people and making them feel like they have someone that is interested in what they’re saying,” senior Maddie Babcock said. “A lot of these people might not have someone that they’re going to spend Thanksgiving with, so I just like being able to be that person to chat with and get to know them. It makes me happy.”

Multiple musical groups performed at the luncheon, bringing a variety of music genres to the senior citizens. Volunteers were encouraged to get the seniors onto the dance floor, as dance may not be a common activity in their daily routine. The Jazz band performed for the majority of the event, playing music that allowed seniors to gravitate to the dance floor.

“This is always the most fun [event] to play because seeing them dance is really fun, and seeing them enjoy it makes us want to play more and better and have a good time with them,” senior and Jazz band tenor saxophone Ryan Schoenfeld said.

The choir sang and danced to a “Tale for a Winter’s Night,” and swaying side to side in full costume, the Madrigals sang “Traveller’s Prayer” and “Fair Phyllis,” two songs that they believed the seniors would be familiar with and sing along to.

“Seniors physically express their enjoyment of music [so] it’s really nice to be in that small cafeteria environment and to see their reaction,” senior and alto section leader Sakurako Tanaka said.

Approximately 150-200 plates of food were made for the senior citizens, faculty and staff. The menu featured traditional Thanksgiving mains and sides, including roasted turkey with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, savory stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce and a dinner roll.

“The products are from the warehouse and we do some cooking from scratch,” food services supervisor Dennis Hackett said. “The mashed potatoes are a packaged mashed potato but we add different chicken stock and seasonings, diced onions, celery [and] clarified margarine to the product for the senior citizens. We just want to enhance it so that they have a better flavor profile and enjoy the experience, but it’s all a product that comes from our Central Production facility.”

For dessert, a traditional pumpkin pie was served to seniors, faculty, staff and volunteers.

“We had the [pumpkin] pies come in from a different distributor [so it] is a fresh pumpkin pie, but most of our product does come in from our Central Processing and Food Service warehouse,” Hackett said.

For as long as WJ has welcomed seniors into the cafeteria for the Luncheon, feedback from the community has been extremely positive.

“It’s so special because it makes you feel very special that the kids are bringing you the food, and the food was good,” senior citizen Janet McDonald said.

While some strangers became friends through dinner conversations, others were already connected to the WJ community.

“I love the music and, of course, the food, but that’s secondary. [Also, I love] the kids, and my granddaughter goes to WJ and [I’ve been meeting all her friends]. They all call me Nana,” senior citizen Sandy Bragin said.

CoHe plans to continue the tradition of hosting a Thanksgiving Senior Citizen Luncheon with ambitions for making it bigger and better.

“I want to reach out to more communities [next year] and go even more into the community and find people who haven’t participated yet,” Matro said. “We could probably accommodate a few more [seniors]. I would also like to involve more members of our community, so for the first time, we had the LFI classes help with the decorations. Ms. Perikles, the LFI teacher, said that we should also get the preschoolers involved; they could help with decorations too, or they could even do a song or something and perform just so that the guests see how diverse this community is.”

The Senior Citizen Luncheon not only provides seniors with a warm Thanksgiving meal and engaging conversation but also plays a bigger role in breaking down generational barriers. By dancing, sharing a meal and participating in genuine conversations, preconceived notions and stereotypes about both parties are broken, uniting the Montgomery County community at large.