In weekly small-group conversations, Life Story Club participants — many homebound or isolated — share their lives and build lasting bonds.
In just minutes, the Life Story Club in New York City springs to life. On Zoom, a mosaic of faces — each with decades of lived experience — leans in as Bernd, a retired urban planner for the Bronx and Manhattan, recalls how the pandemic nudged him into new passions: playing jazz harmonica and taking up woodworking. “It’s a social event,” he animatedly describes his woodworking group. “We talk and sing together while we make art.”
Prompted by Ezra Guerin Gates, Life Story Club’s warm and thoughtful program manager, the conversation blossoms. The prompt: share a time when you stumbled into a new interest. Bernd’s story unlocks a floodgate — Wanda reminisces about playing the flute, Victor beams as he describes his passions for Broadway and pickleball, and Susan, an artist, recounts how a lump of clay sparked a love for ceramics so strong that her home is now filled with her creations. (To protect against elder fraud, Life Story Club shares only participants’ first names.)
The Older Adults Conquering Loneliness Through Storytelling, reasonstobecheerful.world, 9th June 2025