Tea and Talks at Richmond CLC

Teatime is 2 p.m. at Richmond Regional High School for its newest community outreach project. Dubbed Tea & Talks, it is a chance for English-speaking seniors – of the golden age variety, not teenaged students about to graduate – to get together and socialize.

“It’s pretty simple, really. It’s tea. And we talk!” said Alice Weare, who has been leading the project as the CLC Seniors Outreach Project Assistant since September. Alice was drawn to the idea of creating a seniors’ social activity when she found herself newly retired from many years as an activities coordinator at a seniors’ residence. “There are programs out there for people who want to play cards, and programs for people who want to do exercise, or to learn. This is just a social program. It’s like instead of going to your friend’s house for tea, you come to a community gathering place, and you can come by yourself or with friends,” said Alice.

The Tea & Talk project is funded by the Table de concertation pour les aînés de la MRC du Val-saint-françois, a regional roundtable for the wellbeing of senior citizens. Through the same funding, projects aiming to reduce the isolation of seniors are also being carried out by the volunteer centres (Centre d’action bénévoles) of Windsor, Richmond and Valcourt. The roundtable table dedicated funds specifically to support the Englishspeaking community, and approached Richmond Regional High School to do so.

Why is a high school involved in a seniors’ outreach project? Through the Community Learning Centre (“CLC”) approach, Richmond Regional High School has held a dual mandate to support student success and the community vitality of the English-speaking community since 2011. CLC Schools develop partnerships to help educators leverage community resources and integrate real-world, authentic and engaging learning opportunities for students. In turn, the schools become access points for community organizations and service providers to offer programming and resources to students, their families and the English-speaking community at large.

One of RRHS’ longest standing CLC partnerships is with Townshippers’ Association, for the Community Health Education Program (CHEP) DVD and videoconference presentations. The idea of Tea & Talks was developed in partnership with and continues to be supported by Townshippers’ as an activity complementary to CHEPS, which has amassed a steady audience of primarily seniors in the past years.

There have been two sessions of Talk & Talks already, with 12 people in attendance at the last one. Guest speakers included writer and humourist, Ross Murray; outreach worker, Suzanne Gallagher; and a counselor from the Centre des Femmes du Val-saint-françois, Arianne Gravel. Guest speakers can talk on a variety topics, answer questions and generally stimulate conversations both in large groups or smaller ones that branch off organically. With Tea & Talks, we hope that these discussions can help spark connections and even perhaps inspire seniors to organize or engage in other activities to help reduce their isolation. Intergenerational projects with the high school students could certainly a potential!

The next Tea & Talk will be on Dec. 4 with the local pharmacist invited as our special guest. A session is also planned for Feb. 5 with a naturopath and in March (date tbd), likely with a Stpatrick’s Day theme.

For more information, contact Siumin Jim at 819-826-3702 ext. 24026 or jims@etsb.qc.ca.