We don’t need to feel that we have outlived our usefulness after our hair has turned to grey and our children have all flown from the nest. We don’t need to sit around and suffer from the “empty nest syndrome” when there are so many children who need and will flourish with our attention (and they are not the only ones who will flourish.) We will find ourselves anxious to get up in the morning and get started on a new venture that will benefit children for the rest of their lives.

There is much work to be done in the field of education, but you say, “I am not a teacher.” How about joining Generations United’s Seniors4Kids?

We are all teachers in one way or another. And today with so many households with both parents working or with single-parent homes and many grandparents rearing their grandchildren or babysitting them, there is an enormous amount of work to be done.

Daycares could use your help. Libraries have some good programs that could use a helping hand. There is also another way that you can make a difference in children’s lives. By raising your voice in support of high-quality pre-kindergarten, you can promote lifelong success for all of Kentucky’s children.

Children look to us as role models and they mimic what we say and do. What better way to make them better students when they reach school age than to make sure that every child can enter school fully prepared to learn, while the window of opportunity is still open? I had the pleasure of working with pre-school children when I worked with a program run by the state called KIPP in 1979-80. I was the director of a daycare with children under five years old and taught kindergarten before kindergarten was incorporated into the school systems in Kentucky. It was the joy of my lifetime!

Small children are like sponges and are hungry to learn and interact with other children. And they love the “grandmother or grandfather” figure. I cannot think of a better way to spend my time than to help children get a heads-up on the learning process and unite the generations.

I had a class of young children that were excited about learning and liked to hear someone read books or play games, build sand castles or kick the can. They enjoyed marching to an imaginary band that had instruments made of cardboard boxes and metal tins. They liked to do art work on white butcher paper and some were good artists... with paints made of cornstarch and food coloring.

They liked to wear colorful bracelets that I made with yarn and a simple crochet needle. They wore them with pride around their ankles or wrists and learned to say “please” and “thank you.” They could hardly wait to come to “school” and looked forward to getting big enough to ride a real school bus and attend the big school. Learning was the name of our game and the children loved it! Imagine if every Kentucky child benefited from a quality program like this one.

Everyone appreciates a purpose in life and there are so many senior citizens who find their hands idle when they retire or when their spouse is no longer in the picture. But there is a need out there and that can be met if they want to join forces with Seniors4Kids and become an advocate for pre-school children, a Captain4Kids, if you will.

My husband and I have been advocates for children with the Optimist Club since 1981 before we had an empty nest. The club in London mentors around 5,000 children each year with all kinds of programs that help them turn into productive citizens and helps those who might otherwise fall through the cracks in sports in regular school. Some enter the speech contests and others learn to swim. The Optimists teach the children bicycle safety and teach them to fish and learn about water safety. There is nothing more satisfying that to see the bright eyes of a child excited with the learning process.

Optimists teach children to think about he future and to think about what they want to do when they become adults. Their motto is :”Friends of Youth.” They have a scholarship program called “The Jeff Caudill Optimist Scholarship” that encourages them to maintain good grades and go on to college.

Many of the men and women who work with the young children across Optimist International are older people who have time on their hands and a desire to be of service to children. Everybody’s children. And although most of the children who are benefited by the work of the Optimist Club are school age, all of them are not. Many pre-schoolers have been taught to fish and swim by white haired Optimists. And it would be difficult to know who enjoyed it more, the senior or the child. Lifelong lessons were learned.

Similarly, Generations United’s Seniors4Kids works to make sure that every 3- and 4-year-old child in Kentucky can access lifelong lessons in a high-quality pre-k program. With First Lady Jane Beshear and all former first ladies serving as honorary co-chairs, Generations United first launched Senior4Kids in Kentucky with the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence in June 2008. Seniors4Kids demonstrates the important role that older adults can play in support of children. There is a place for anyone interested in becoming a Captain4Kids. Captains4Kids builds a bridge between the generations that benefits all children by writing letters, visiting with legislators, and participating in special events. If there are veterans out there with time on their hands or seniors who are willing to join Seniors4Kids, please call Mary A. Musgrave, Kentucky State Coordinator at 859-294-0415 or Willi (Wilma) Walker, Kentucky Chair of Captains for Kids at 859-623-2457. It doesn’t take a lot of time, and it can make a valuable difference in a child’s life.

Shirley Caudill of London is a former newspaper editor/publisher and longtime freelance columnist. She is a Nashville native who has lived in Kentucky 40 years. She has six children, 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren and is married to a retired Army First Sergeant. She can be reached at shirleycaudill@windstream.net