The audience smiled as photo highlights of travels to Egypt, pictures of ballet performances, and baby pictures of the life story class participants were shown on screen. Short video clips told stories of the seniors meeting her husband for the first time after his return from the Pacific Theater, lessons learned from a distinguished career as a professional ballet dancer, and being inspired by world travels to become an actor. Here’s a shortened version of the video:

Watching the videos spurred the seniors to ask the students more questions. As one attendee said, “You might sit near one of them and never know that they have these fascinating stories. We sometimes don’t think to ask.” Betty Trooper-Naftaly, one of the students in the class, added: “I’m glad I’m doing this. It’s a great way to pass down our stories to future generations.”

We couldn’t have said it better.  We at Famento developed this project to celebrate the life stories of seniors in our community. It was really exciting to see the energy and smiling faces in the room.  It sounded like a conversation that just started.

We look forward to having some of the seniors join us in one of our future classes.

Special thanks to the Castro Senior Center for hosting the class and our event, our co-sponsor San Francisco Department of Aging and Adult Services, Gold Partner Cypress Lawn, and Mi Zhou who graciously volunteered to take portrait photos of our life story class students.

Some photo highlights from the event: