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Read about the history of National Grandparents Day

What do grandparents today look like?

Check out the Legacy Project's complete Grandparents Day Planning & Activity Guide

Free online family activities

Share the heartwarming bestseller A Little Something about love and legacies across generations and get reading tips

Download 12 Tips to bring generations closer

Especially for grandparents

Children and teens can interview a grandparent or grandfriend to enter the Legacy Project's annual Listen to a Life Essay Contest

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Legacy Project

GRANDPARENTS DAY SEPTEMBER 9:
BRING THE GENERATIONS IN YOUR FAMILY CLOSER

For Immediate Release

Contact: Brian Puppa, e-mail or call (905) 852-3777

National Grandparents Day

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012 / Legacy Project / – Research shows children need four to six involved, caring adults to fully develop emotionally and socially. Grandparents can play a vital role in today's families. So how do you build closer bonds across the generations in your family? Try a Generations Scrapbook, Did You Ever game, or grandparents and grandchildren can even travel time together to enter a contest and win a computer. The Legacy Project at www.legacyproject.org has plenty of free online family activities to help celebrate National Grandparents Day, September 9. The Legacy Project is a big-picture learning project for all ages.

Relationships between generations benefit everyone. Children get a better sense of who they are and where they've come from, have higher self-esteem, even better grades in school. Parents are often less stressed when there's an active, supportive grandparent in their children's life. And older people live longer, healthier lives, with less memory loss and depression, and are much happier when they're actively involved with the young.

"These relationships give you things you can't get anywhere else," says Legacy Project Chair and intergenerational educator Susan V. Bosak. "They make us feel connected – not only to each other, but to something bigger, to the flow of life, to the past and to the future."

Bosak offers these ideas to bring generations closer:

  • Sharing bits of your life story over time can help grandchildren get to know you. If you don't know where or how to start, the Legacy Project website has a free downloadable Fill-in-the-Blanks Life Story and a Generations Scrapbook.

  • Prompt informal family storytelling with a game of Did You Ever...? Children and adults can share stories and compare memories from different times. For example, did you ever go on a boat, sleep in a cabin or tent, act in a play, stay in a fancy hotel?

  • Grandchildren can interview grandparents – there's even a list of evocative questions on the Legacy Project website. Then, grandchildren can enter the annual Listen to a Life Contest. The Grand Prize is a Lenovo ThinkCentre computer. One 8-year-old winner from last year commented that "for five years I've lived next door to my grandfather, but never took the time to get to know him as well as I did over a weekend when I interviewed him for the contest. He taught me about life, my heritage, and himself."

  • Grandparents can create a Life Statement with their most important values and experiences to share what matters with other generations.

  • Grandparents should get involved in their grandchildren's education, and schools should put together events to make them feel welcome. There's a complete planning guide for a school Grandparents Day event on the Legacy Project's website, including reproducible invitations and activity sheets.

  • Grandparents and grandchildren should let each other know what they think is special about the other. As a keepsake on Grandparents Day or any day, download free Grandparents Are VIPs and Greatest Grandchild fill-in certificates from the Legacy Project website.


The Legacy Project has also partnered with Generations United in Washington, DC for their Do Something Grand! campaign designed to encourage intergenerational social action. You can download a Take Action Guide.

Bosak says her interest in intergenerational connections started with her own close relationship with her grandmother, who inspired Bosak's award-winning picture book A Little Something. A heartwarming story about love and legacies across generations, the book has become a popular Grandparents Day read-aloud in families and schools, with more than half a million copies in print.

"Remember that children carry the legacy not only of what you give them, but also the void that's left by what you don't," says Bosak. "Building the grandparent connection helps you and them."

For more information, the free online activities and complete Listen to a Life Contest details, visit www.legacyproject.org.

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For more information, contact Brian Puppa, Legacy Project, by e-mail or call (905) 852-3777