On May 7, Alexandra Sebastiani ’26 held her fourth and final “Bridging Generations” dinner as part of her Junior Fellowship project which aims to promote dialogue and relationships between young Branson students and members of older generations.
For the four weeks from April 16 to May 7, she held four dinners at Vivalon Café in San Rafael on topics ranging from Ageism and Technology Issues to Social Issues and Life Advice. Each dinner, up to 18 Branson students joined members of Vivalon, a hub for both older and disabled people in San Rafael, to discuss these topics.
Every year, around 12 Branson juniors are selected for a fellowship, diving deep into a specific area of interest and then bringing it back to the local community. They are given a budget that is allocated to specific aspects of each project, and in the fall of their senior year, each fellowship is presented to the school in celebration of the hard work and dedication of each student.
“The reason why I did my Junior Fellowship at Vivalon was because when I had my first experience helping their community with tech support, it was really transformative and I wanted to give back to the community there,” Sebastiani said. “I was really passionate about this particular project and I wanted to find a shared connection between generations.”
Michele Levine, Vivalon’s Healthy Aging Director, oversaw the execution of “Bridging Generations.” “[Sebastiani] had the idea of bringing the groups together,” Levine said. “It started with one idea, and then it just kind of grew as we brainstormed how to do it. We came up with ‘Oh, let’s talk about these themes,’ because they are really relevant for both older adults and young people,” she added.
One of the most prominent participants of the dinners was Roberta Dillon, a volunteer at Vivalon invited by Levine who attended all four of the Vivalon Café dinners. When asked what her biggest takeaway from each dinner was, she responded, “I probably had opinions on the future of our country that have now been reversed and turned on their head thanks to these dinners. The opportunity has been both stimulating and informative. I have taken away a change in opinion on high school students of this generation, and I am very optimistic about our future generations.”
The project has not only had a profound impact on the dinner guests, but also on Vivalon members.
“Everybody on our staff wants to keep [Bridging Generations] going. Everybody’s really committed to figuring out how we can do that,” Levine said. “We won’t have trouble finding older adults, but it’ll be challenging finding young people.”
Levine holds a lot of gratitude for members of the Branson community who participated in the dinner series.
“Thank you. Really, thank you so much. You all have provided an opportunity of engagement in a way that we wouldn’t have been able to do here at Vivalon, because we only serve older adults. We hear from the older adults who come here ‘Do this again, do it again. We want more and more.’ And, reading some of the feedback forms people have left, it’s amazing how impactful this has been for so many people,” Levine said.
Dillion shared similar enthusiasm for the fellowship and its continuation, adding, “This project has planted a seed in the Vivalon organization for this program to continue and flourish. I have been told it has been extremely successful, and other schools have reached out asking to partner with Vivalon in the project. All in all, Alexandra has planted a tiny seed that will eventually become a mighty oak tree.”
