Seniors build connections at Shaker Library’s Coffee and Community hour.
By Lyndsey Brennan
Attendees at Coffee and Community select stamps to use on their accordion pocket file craft. Photos by Robert Muller.
It’s 9:55am on Wednesday morning at Shaker Main Library, and the Teen Room is starting to fill – not with teens, who are currently at school, but with community members, the majority of them retirees.
And when the teens are away, the retirees will play.
Standing at the entrance is Virginia Schoelch (pronounced shell-shush), a veteran Shaker Library employee, warmly greeting each person by name and inviting them to fill their mug with coffee or tea at the refreshments cart.
Every attendee, it seems, has the same question for Schoelch: “What do you have planned for today?” Knowing Schoelch, it could be literally anything.
Maybe it’s an unexpectedly fascinating talk on the history of yarn, given by the owner of the local yarn shop. Maybe it’s a lively discussion of the City’s upcoming revitalization plans, headed by the mayor himself. Maybe it’s a local artist, author, or entrepreneur, coming to share about their area of expertise.
Maybe they’re trying their hand at blackout poetry, rock painting, or art journaling. Or maybe they’re learning to write their names in braille using pieces of candy.
Pam Corbin shows off her finished product. Top right: Attendees created accordion pocket files made from recycled envelopes.
At these gatherings, hosted Wednesdays at 10am at Main Library, the topic and activity are variable. What’s constant are the faces – and the laughter.
Welcome to Coffee and Community, a gathering launched in 2017 with the objective of connecting residents for conversations that go beyond surface-level.
“The librarian who hosted this program before Virginia had been doing a lot of senior programming around health and financial topics. Then we noticed that people were looking for more than just information – they were looking to be together,” Adult Services Manager Cindy Maxey says.
Maxey and her staff know that retirees can be susceptible to loneliness and social isolation, so they’ve provided a place where people can be together at no cost – a concept to which Shaker residents have really responded.
Each week, the gathering averages between 10 and 20 attendees. Even in winter, with the snowbirds gone, attendance didn’t wane.
Since retirement, Quintilla Draper, who began attending the group in 2022, has become a homebody. “I’m fine at home. I’ve got my books. I’ve got TV. I’ve got my crafts. But this group motivates me to come out of the house.”
Leslie Ostrander laughs with other attendees. Below: Geoffrey Hare enjoys coffee and conversation.
“At my age, I’m not going to hang out at a bar. I wouldn’t enjoy it,” says Shaker resident Leslie Ostrander, who still works full-time. “But for me, Coffee and Community is a way to meet people I wouldn’t otherwise get to know. We’re different, but what we have in common is that we like to get together.”
Coffee and Community took a hiatus during pandemic lockdowns and library renovations. It was rebooted in 2021, this time with a slight tweak in the objective. Maxey wanted the group to be member-led, with participants deciding what they’ll discuss.
“Too often, especially with seniors, people make assumptions about what they want and need, which is really disempowering,” says Maxey. “I think it’s important to [structure programming] this way, so that the participants are deciding what they want to pursue.”
Schoelch has taken the idea and run with it. Attendees bring her their ideas for topics and questions they have about the city and world. Then, she arranges for a speaker or activity.
Pam Corbin, a partially-retired Shaker resident who teaches Tai Chi, says attending gatherings like Coffee and Community keeps her young.
“Every time I turn on the TV, the first thing I see is a pharmaceutical commercial. It’s like, you turn 50 and you’re supposed to fall apart. But as long as you have breath and life you can keep learning, growing, and becoming whoever you need to become.”
She continues, “I tell everybody, every time I come here, I learn something new. I learn about other people’s interests, and they suggest things for me to try. So that’s what we share – a curiosity about life. And an understanding that we’re not done living yet.”
I recently attended a Coffee and Community hour where attendees were working on puzzles, brain teasers, and coloring pages. (“This is our mental health day,” one of them told me.)
During that session, Corbin shared a story from childhood. “The older people my parents brought around were vibrant. They were doing things, you know? And constantly learning. I had an aunt who learned how to drive at 62.”
Another attendee jumped in: “A lot of us knew people like that.”
And a third: “My mother didn’t learn to drive until after she raised four kids. I’m talking about the ‘40s and ‘50s. We used to take the bus because women didn’t drive in those days.”
The conversation became a lively back-and-forth, with the retirees swapping stories about their childhoods and families, discussing recent events and talking about how things “used to be,” quoting religious texts and The Four Agreements, and ribbing each other about their clumsiness (walking into windows) or bad driving (going the wrong way in a construction zone).
At one point, the discussion turns to how attendees are changing the narrative on aging. Schoelch meets my eye and says, “Can you tell we inspire each other?”
I can.
What does Schoelch bring to the group? Without a moment’s hesitation, Maxey tells me: “Joy.”
But I can see it’s more than that. Schoelch’s care for the attendees is infectious – and they have followed her lead. You can tell by the way they greet each other, banter, and ask after each other if someone’s not there, they’ve come to care about each other too.
Maxey’s hope for the Coffee and Community group is that it continues to be a community-builder. Continues being participant-led. And continues helping attendees feel connected to their community – and each other.
With Schoelch at the helm and a host of invested, inquisitive people by her side, bet on it.
