Message from Councilmember Ellen Zimmerman | January 28, 2022
In 2022, I have the honor of serving as the council’s liaison to the Board of Education and PTA as well as to our local Senior Citizens community through the Senior Citizens Advisory Committee and Scotch Plains Senior Housing. Working with these groups, my focus will be not only to ensure that top-quality programming in our school and senior communities continues to exist in our town, but I would also like to help introduce new programs aimed at building bridges between these two groups.
It has often been written, and I personally agree, that the perspectives and wisdom held by more seasoned individuals can prove enormously valuable when shared across generations. Scotch Plains already benefits from a strong and active senior community, but as with many towns, programming and events are often isolated from the rest of the community.
While I believe this type of programming is important and many seniors embrace this time with one another, I believe there is a great opportunity to be seized by creating outlets for understanding to be shared between different groups in our community.
That is why I want to explore new ways in which our youngest and oldest residents can interact and learn new perspectives from each other. Much of the history our children learn in school, for example, is gleaned from textbooks and movies. Why not also open a dialogue between our students and their neighbors who lived through those events and experienced that historical moment firsthand?
Our children are growing up in an era that looks and feels very different from the circumstances of childhood even just twenty years ago. Children today grow up with social media and a grasp on technology from a young age, and as a result are savvy to new modes of communication, but at the same time, exposed to the potentially harmful effects on the internet. Connecting our younger and older residents might offer a way to trade knowledge and perhaps discover new ways to use technology as a positive force in our community and our world.
Ultimately, I believe that creating conversations across generations in Scotch Plains will provide an avenue to build better understanding within our community. I bet we are all much more alike than we think, no matter in what century we were born. We just need to begin talking and sharing.
Helping to create this lasting connection is an endeavor I am eager to embrace throughout this year.
