Young Volunteers Transforming Senior Communities Through Herralink

Lisa [: 00:00:00

Thank you for listening. I'm your host, Lisa. And today, we're gonna talk about the benefits of intergenerational friendships. Intergenerational friendships promote learning, feeling connected, and this crazy idea that humans should be interested in supporting one another. And here to help us have this conversation is a young lady named Isabella Solano, who is the founder of a nonprofit in Northern Virginia called Herralink. Is Herralink how you pronounce it, Isabella?

Isabella Solano [: 00:00:30

Herralink.

Lisa [: 00:00:31

Herralink. Okay. What is Herralink?

Isabella Solano [: 00:00:35

Herralink is a nonprofit that connects high school students with residents in different senior communities. We do it in a couple different ways. Students can come into these buildings to do short one hour activities like bingo, arts and crafts, or games. Or if they're looking for a more meaningful opportunity, they can join our one on one program and connect with one resident who's room bound and doesn't have any, visitors.

Lisa [: 00:00:59

Okay. And how did this come to be? You're the you're the founder. So

Isabella Solano [: 00:01:06

Yes.

Lisa [: 00:01:06

This was your idea?

Isabella Solano [: 00:01:08

Yes, ma'am. It was August of twenty twenty three, and a friend of mine was a CNA nurse at Gainesville Health and Rehab. We're catching up post high school, and he just makes a passing comment saying that the residence he works for never has any visitors. And for one reason or another, that comment really stuck with me, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. And so to put it at rest, I went and I visited, and I remembered that it was the first time in a really long time that I didn't feel lonely. I felt really welcomed. I felt so much joy, and I just felt at peace. So very selfishly, I just wanted to chase after that feeling, and I found myself there at that building pretty much every day.

Isabella Solano [: 00:01:51

Wow. And the more that I befriended these residents, the more that I realized he wasn't exaggerating. They really don't have any family or friends that visit them. And so I thought, okay. There has to be other people my age or younger who need a friend just like I did. Let me see if I can connect the two.

Lisa [: 00:02:09

Oh my gosh. So it started with this idea, and you say it was you say it was selfishly motivated, but there's no way we're selling that. That is not the truth. This is way too awesome to be selfishly motivated. So then what made you think, let me build a business, and, like, how did you go about it?

Isabella Solano [: 00:02:31

Yeah. I think the thing is I I knew the high school students needed volunteer hours.

Lisa [: 00:02:36

Okay. And so

Isabella Solano [: 00:02:37

I thought, okay, if I can kind of think of this almost as a recruitment platform and use the students need for volunteer hours, I can find the hidden gems. The people who are either looking to do something meaningful or the people who are more like me and they needed somebody in their lives. And so what I set out first to do is to connect with as many high schools as possible, which let me tell you was definitely not an easy journey. I I emailed everybody that I could and then my emails got ignored. So I got very frustrated and I started going in person. I'd give them my pitch. I'd give them a little flyer. In all honesty, nobody really cared.

Isabella Solano [: 00:03:16

And so what I realized is that because I'm not a student, I can't actually use, the student bathrooms. I can only use the faculty bathroom. Coincidentally, it's almost always near the principal's office. And so I'd go in, I'd give my little pitch, I'd ask to use the bathroom, and instead of using the restroom, I'd go straight into the principal's office and ask for a couple minute of their time. And that's how we got our first partnerships with our first set of schools.

Lisa [: 00:03:43

Oh my gosh. You are a salesperson at heart, my dear.

Isabella Solano [: 00:03:48

I do what I have to.

Lisa [: 00:03:49

You do what you have to. And I have, I've I've, got some things off your website. I'm gonna say them, and you tell me what it means. 2,000 seniors.

Isabella Solano [: 00:03:59

Yeah. So we've worked with around 12 senior communities to impact 2,000 seniors here in Northern Virginia.

Lisa [: 00:04:06

Amazing. 700 volunteers.

Isabella Solano [: 00:04:09

Yeah. We have 750 registered volunteers right now.

Lisa [: 00:04:13

And those are all high schoolers?

Isabella Solano [: 00:04:15

Those are all high school students.

Lisa [: 00:04:17

Oh my gosh. Fourteen hundred hours earned?

Isabella Solano [: 00:04:21

Yep. Our students are hard workers. They come in either weekly or on a monthly basis, and that's the amount of hours we've accumulated.

Lisa [: 00:04:30

Gotcha. And 38 high schools.

Isabella Solano [: 00:04:35

Yeah. We have connected with around 38 high schools, to get those registered volunteers.

Lisa [: 00:04:41

So let me hear your pitch. Let's pretend I'm the principal and you have snuck into my office. So what are you gonna say to me?

Isabella Solano [: 00:04:49

I'd walk in and I'd say, hey, can I just have a couple minutes of your time? They go, sure. Like, hey, I recently graduated from high school. I'm the founder of a nonprofit that's just trying to connect some high school students with some lonely seniors. This is a really easy service hour opportunity. I never asked the students to clean up or set up. I asked them to befriend someone. If they can do that, they'll be set for life. This is an opportunity that once they do it, it sticks with them for the rest of their life.

Isabella Solano [: 00:05:16

Wouldn't you want your students to do that?

Lisa [: 00:05:19

No way. Excuse me? No way, anybody. No. No. I'm not interested in that at all. Now I have your mission in front of me to create a world where seniors feel valued, seen, and heard. I think that should be our mission here at Aging in Full Bloom. I might just borrow that.

Lisa [: 00:05:39

Go ahead. To create a world where seniors feel valued, seen, and heard. What drove that?

Isabella Solano [: 00:05:48

The more that I started interacting with these communities, the more I realized that the truth is our seniors are afterthoughts in society, which is a real shame to say, but it's the truth. Once you age, especially if you age in facilities like skilled nursing facilities, you are kind of separated from your social network. You're separated from neighborhoods, from communities, and you're just left there. And the people that you see every day, there are people that work there, you know, their job isn't to be your friend. That's not the way anybody should live. You should have the opportunity to not only be able to routinely see your family and friends, but also have the chance to see new people, to make a new friend, to understand what's going on a couple of streets down from you in your local community. Mhmm. And that opportunity isn't afforded to seniors.

Isabella Solano [: 00:06:40

And so when I built this, I wanted to make it a point to say that in order to function as people in society, we need to feel like we belong somewhere. And that starts with our seniors, making sure that they feel valued, seen, and heard.

Lisa [: 00:06:55

Oh my gosh. Girl, I wanna adopt you. I'm in love with you. And it says here, we're rooted in the belief that everyone benefits from friendship and engaging interactions. And it's kind of crazy that that's a radical idea these days, but I think that's a radical idea these days. Yes, people benefit from friendship and from engagement and from talking to each other and from sharing with each other. And you obviously have learned this. I'm gonna read you my favorite testimonial off of your website.

Lisa [: 00:07:31

It says, I know firsthand as a teenager how easily we can morph into whatever version of ourselves we need to be in order to feel accepted in certain friendships, But I've never felt that with the senior I visit. There's no judgment between us. We just talk, and I always come away from our visits feeling like I've learned something. It may be a different kind of bond, but that's what makes it so special. Yeah. What are your thoughts? It's kind of what you just told me. It mirrors everything you said. What would you add to it?

Isabella Solano [: 00:08:04

I think there's a real big misconception about what I've built and the volunteers who help out what I'm doing. Everyone thinks that we're doing some grand service to seniors and that we're doing it for their benefit. But I think it's a a lot more simple than that. We're here to befriend somebody. Yes. They may be older, but once you enter my program, that doesn't necessarily matter. I'm here to be someone's friend, and they're here to be my friend. And it's exactly what that quote represents.

Isabella Solano [: 00:08:35

It's you don't really expect someone who's maybe 70 or 80 year old to be someone that you turn to to rant about your boy problems or complain about your parents or to talk about school.

Lisa [: 00:08:46

Mhmm.

Isabella Solano [: 00:08:46

But that's what ends up happening. Uh-huh. We become each other's people.

Lisa [: 00:08:50

You don't expect it until you do. Right? And then you Exactly. People are people regardless of age.

Isabella Solano [: 00:08:56

A %. Mhmm.

Lisa [: 00:08:58

So now now the business mind in me is working. How are you staying afloat? How are you making money?

Isabella Solano [: 00:09:07

Yeah. So right now, we're operating at $00 for both the activities departments and then for ourselves. So what we do is we work with the activity departments of the senior communities that we partner with, and we find an existing activity on their event calendar. So for example, at Dallas Health and Rehab, they do coffee coloring and conversation every Saturday at eleven, and they've been doing that for years. I asked if that opportunity could be opened up to our volunteers. That way, they're already allotting staff time in their own budget to hold that event. And on our side, if we don't have any volunteers because it's SAT or prom, it doesn't matter. That event would happen with or without volunteers.

Isabella Solano [: 00:09:47

Moving forward in order to become more sustainable, we do need to generate some sort of revenue. And so I partnered with a mentor of mine, Steve Gurney, with his, business positive aging community. And some of my social media interns will be going to different senior communities to help out with marketing campaigns, social media videos, social media posts, and in exchange, we'll receive a donation from them.

Lisa [: 00:10:11

Talk about bridging the gap between generations. Yeah. That's exactly what that sounds like. Okay. Don't hate me for asking, but how old are you?

Isabella Solano [: 00:10:23

I am 20 years old.

Lisa [: 00:10:24

20 years old. And you are moving mountains to change our world in a positive way. Simple is a word you used. Simple is good. Simple is not a bad thing. We like simple.

Isabella Solano [: 00:10:38

A %.

Lisa [: 00:10:39

How would someone in Northern Virginia get in touch with your organization if they wanted to?

Isabella Solano [: 00:10:47

Yeah. So we do a really good job at making sure that people don't need to find out about us. We find them. And so for our high school students, we connect with the college and career centers, and we get on those newsletters or on their websites that they frequently visit, like Schoology, Blackboard. We're there. We're easily accessible. And circling back to that simple thing, if you're interested in volunteering with HairLink, it only takes twenty minutes. You fill out one general application, you submit a waiver, and you go through training, all in one application.

Isabella Solano [: 00:11:22

Afterwards, you can sign up to work with around 12 senior communities at a date and time that's convenient for you and with an activity that you're actually interested in.

Lisa [: 00:11:31

And where did you get the name Hera link?

Isabella Solano [: 00:11:34

Yeah. So Hera has Nordic backgrounds, meaning elder or senior. So I call my volunteers Hera Helpers, which just translates to senior helpers.

Lisa [: 00:11:44

Sweet. Sweet. Yeah. Alright. So I have a question for you.

Isabella Solano [: 00:11:49

Mhmm. Who do

Lisa [: 00:11:50

you think benefits more? The young people that you work with or the older adults that you work with?

Isabella Solano [: 00:11:56

Definitely the young people that we work with. I I think about myself here. Before I started doing this, I didn't have anywhere where I felt like I belonged. And now I feel like I have a community of people that aren't senior citizens that I'm visiting, but that are my genuine friends. This gave me people in my life, and it gave me a sense of purpose. And I've seen it had the same effect on my volunteers. This is something that they've learned how to communicate with someone that may look a little different than them. They've learned what it means to actually do something important.

Isabella Solano [: 00:12:30

And once you go into these homes, you're never gonna forget what it's like. It's something that you really carry with you for the rest of your life.

Lisa [: 00:12:39

So I have to totally agree with you on this. I think it's the young people as well. Although, we do see great benefits for the older adults. For one thing, I think on both ends, this helps combat loneliness, which you spoke of, you even identified yourself as being lonely initially. There's actually research that indicates that for older adults, this improves their health when they have interaction with young people and just social interaction in general, but especially across the generations. And it provides a sense of purpose for them, which can get lost in aging. But for the young people, it promotes learning. Would you agree?

Isabella Solano [: 00:13:25

Yes. A %.

Lisa [: 00:13:27

Can you tell me something that you have learned, like, a a real nugget of truth that you've learned from doing this work?

Isabella Solano [: 00:13:36

Okay. A real truth. I've learned that life is only worth living if you have people to live it with. And that when I age, I don't want to have to I don't want to have to worry about who's gonna show up to be with me. And so I think the truth that I've learned, and I hope the truth that my volunteers have learned, is that Cheryl Inc is almost preventative. We are teaching younger people that it's their job to show up for people, whether or not they're their close family or friends. You show up when your community needs you. And I hope that the more people can learn that in the earlier stages of their life, the more people will frequently visit these senior facilities.

Lisa [: 00:14:20

Okay. You better put a link on your, website for donations because I would donate. I'm telling you that right now. So So if you haven't if you haven't done that, you should do that. The second thing I have here is that for young people, this promotes social skills beyond texting and social media and all that jazz. Talk to me about that.

Isabella Solano [: 00:14:42

I think that's a real, real big problem. Social media has in a way connected the world, but we are more disconnected than ever. And so kids growing up nowadays, they think, these digital spaces that they inhabit, that that's all there is to it. And that the number of friends they have on Facebook or Instagram or followers on TikTok, that that means something, but the warmth that you feel when you hug someone or when you see someone smile, that'll never be replaced by any social media platform. And so this shows students what it's like to actually make a friend in person, and also what it's like to make a friend with someone who's completely different than you. Put aside the age. A lot of these residents have physical or mental limitations. And so for example, how do you do an arts and crafts activity with someone who's had a stroke? Or how do you speak to someone who doesn't speak your language or has an hearing aid and you have to speak up a little louder? As they continue to navigate these limitations, they realize that, okay, maybe they have to work through some initial issues, but it doesn't really matter.

Isabella Solano [: 00:15:50

You're here for someone else to listen to their story and to have them listen to yours. Once you can do that in these communities, you can make a friend anywhere you go, at any age, and at any stage in life.

Lisa [: 00:16:03

And that actually morphs right into my third point, which is my personal favorite in terms of the benefits to young people. These friendships, these interactions, these conversations promote understanding, understanding aging, the aging process, the older adult. Older adults is the magnificent, intricate, complex, multifaceted, dynamic, amazing human beings that they are, who have had the nerve to watch the world change and walk through hardship and overcome adversity and love hard and build families and businesses and survive loss and keep the faith in advanced tradition while keep on while they keep on keeping on. I know you agree.

Isabella Solano [: 00:16:45

A %. And I think these these volunteers, maybe initially, it's something that they fear. They fear aging. Right? The reality is nobody's ever gonna say, oh, I look forward to aging. Not yet. But if we keep going down the path we're going and we start to bridge that gap to realize we're not too different, maybe we'll create a world where we really do look forward to aging.

Lisa [: 00:17:09

Yes. If you're lucky enough, you get to age. Mhmm. Exactly. Yes, Isabella. Thank you. You are an inspiration doing meaningful and much needed work, and we want you to keep on keeping on. And I have no doubt that you will.

Isabella Solano [: 00:17:24

Thank you so much for having me today. It was a wonderful conversation.

Lisa [: 00:17:27

You're welcome. Add a donation button to your website. I'm telling you, people can donate. Alright. Listeners, thank you for listening. Until next time, may the road rise to meet you. May the wind be forever at your back.