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While the stay at home orders have been absolutely necessary for our safety during this pandemic, loneliness has been a side effect for some. A group of high school & college students decided to create a program called Big and Mini to help connect older folks with young students in video chats as one solution to loneliness. Visit https://bigandmini.org/ to sign up and donate.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
– My birthday is next Wednesday.
00:04
– What? – I don’t think
00:05
we’re gonna do anything, anything special at all.
00:08
– Oh my gosh, no, our next call, we’ll do something special.
00:11
– Oh, okay
00:17
– Being alone and feeling lonely are two different things.
00:21
You can be in a group at a party and still feel lonely.
00:24
It’s the discrepancy between the connections
00:28
that we would like to have
00:29
and the connection that we actually have.
00:32
– I certainly feel lonely actually fairly often.
00:34
I just miss having some people
00:37
who would be happy to see me.
00:46
– It’s always been in the back of our minds,
00:48
the idea of isolation in general.
00:50
COVID kind of exacerbated the issue
00:52
and brought it to the surface in our society more.
00:54
– We found ourselves feeling lonely,
00:56
even though we were constantly connected with phones,
00:59
and we had our families and everything.
01:01
So we imagined that, for a lot of seniors or older adults,
01:04
it would significantly more difficult
01:06
to find those connections.
01:08
– When we saw that this was a problem,
01:10
we decided this is something we can do,
01:12
we can leverage our software expertise to connect people.
01:16
Big & Mini is a platform that connects youth and seniors
01:19
through video calls in order to create beautiful,
01:21
mutually beneficial relationships.
01:23
– Hi, Avery, how are you?
01:25
– Hi, good. How’s your Monday?
01:27
– Let’s do a little check-in about how our week went.
01:31
– Actually, I have some good news.
01:32
I made Dean’s List at my school.
01:35
– Congratulations, oh, that’s wonderful.
01:38
– Starting out, we thought senior isolation
01:40
was the big problem.
01:41
As we’ve continued more and more,
01:42
we’ve realized that isolation is a problem
01:44
that crosses all generations.
01:46
– The hardest part of quarantine for me
01:49
is kind of feeling lonelier than I normally would,
01:52
because at least at school I was always around my friends.
01:56
It’s just kind of nice to be able to connect with someone
01:59
and kind of get my mind off of everything that’s going on.
02:02
I lost my great-uncle in April, and it devastated me
02:07
because he didn’t die from COVID,
02:10
but he died alone.
02:12
He was all alone because nobody
02:15
was really allowed to see him.
02:17
I think Connie has given me an outlet
02:19
to be able to talk to someone
02:21
and just make them feel like they’re not alone.
02:25
– I’ve never really considered myself to be a lonely person,
02:28
but I have rethought about whether maybe I was lonely,
02:33
and just didn’t recognize it,
02:35
because I do look forward to my Saturday calls with Daniel.
02:40
I found another recipe called,
02:43
and I wondered if you’ve heard of this,
02:45
or if your mother has ever made this, Papas Rellenas.
02:48
– It’s actually funny that you mention that one,
02:51
’cause I think that’s one of the few Peruvian dishes
02:53
that I personally am not a huge fan of.
02:55
– Tell me why.
02:57
– I know for a fact that talking with Miss Elva
02:59
is always gonna be fun, it’s always gonna be interesting,
03:01
and something to look forward to.
03:03
You know, see how her week’s been
03:04
and see how, what other new foods she’s tried .
03:08
– Guess what happened to me last week.
03:11
– What? That sounds exciting.
03:13
– I got a book deal with a publisher.
03:16
– No way, really? – I did.
03:19
She is a writer, like me.
03:22
I don’t have kids, and so to have that kind of connection,
03:27
it fulfills me.
03:28
– She’s doing things with her life
03:30
that I wanna do with my life,
03:31
so getting to talk to her
03:32
and learn things from her is really cool.
03:35
I would love to be that person
03:37
that she confides in and spends her time with.
03:45
– I’m just thrilled to death
03:47
that she’s willing to talk with me,
03:48
and I love the fact that you trust in God,
03:51
that you want to do right things and keep growing.
03:54
I’m so happy for you about the Dean’s List,
03:56
that’s just lovely.
03:57
– I love the different stories you tell.
04:00
I just think you’re just a super iconic person.
04:03
I think I said that the other day, but I’m like–
04:05
– What does that mean, what do you mean?
04:08
– It’s another word for awesome.
04:09
– He is a very virtuous person.
04:12
I am delighted to think that people like him
04:15
are going to be creating the world
04:18
that my grandchildren are gonna be living in.
04:21
– My favorite thing about you , Elva,
04:23
is that even if I have,
04:26
one of my interests isn’t your forte,
04:28
you still go out of your way to learn about it.
04:30
Now you’re making pollo saltado
04:33
probably as good as any Peruvian chef.
04:36
– You tell great stories.
04:38
– Really? – Yes.
04:39
Honestly, some of the things you’ve told me
04:41
have been straight on the mark
04:42
and reflecting what’s going on in my life,
04:44
and I’ve learned great things from you.
04:46
– Oh my gosh, Avery, thank you.
04:50
The thing I like about Avery is her openness.
04:54
I really noticed that you love yourself.
04:58
And that will encourage me to do the same about myself.
05:02
– Aw, thank you, that was so sweet.
05:04
– Now if I could just give you a hug.
05:06
Maybe one day we’ll do that.
05:09
– One day, we’ll get there eventually .
05:11
– No doubt.
05:14
– If you’re interested in signing up for Big & Mini,
05:16
you can go to our website.
05:17
All you have to do is click the Sign Up button,
05:20
fill out your information,
05:21
and we’ll take care of all the steps from there.
05:23
We would really appreciate your donations, as well.
05:26
Sign up .
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This post was previously published on YouTube and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video