A digital-era tribute to age and wisdom
Geraldine Doucet, 84, who performs for charities, speaks with Clarence Bayne, at left. Both are among the seniors honoured during an event marking Seniors Day. | Courtesy of Mobile Media Lab
Eighty-four-year-old singer-actress Geraldine Doucet — a local celebrity who regularly wows audiences at benefit concerts — and eight other hard-working retirees were recognized in a special Seniors Day presentation at Concordia on October 1.
“It’s a very small recognition on our part of seniors who are now in their seventies and eighties, and are still actively involved and donating many hours to organizations,” says Ruth Pelletier.
She represents Seniors Action Quebec, which partnered with Concordia’s Office of Community Engagement and the Mobile Media Lab to organize an interactive presentation at the Multi-faith Chapel on the Loyola Campus.
“As an organization, we want to encourage a healthy active lifestyle. That means getting involved, and staying involved,” Pelletier says.
Doucet, Daphne Nahmiash, Clarence Bayne, Ura Greenbaum, Catherine Gilbert, Belva Thomas, Ved Vohra, Patricia McGurnaghan-Pitre and Harold Greenspon were all honoured in individual videos.
According to Eryn Fitzgerald, coordinator of the Office of Community Engagement, Professor Kim Sawchuk and the Communication Studies students in the Mobile Media Lab “hit the ground running” when they took on the project.
“Their approach to it was really interesting. Instead of saying, ‘Right, we'll have our grad students just interview the list of seniors you want to award,’ they decided to have members of Seniors Action Quebec interview each other,” Fitzgerald says.
Seniors Action Quebec’s project doesn’t end there. Israel Dupuis — a part-time faculty member in the Faculty of Fine Arts — also plans to feature the select group of seniors in a website or a print publication created by students in DART 481, his design outreach class.
“The October 1 presentation is a big splashy event in the middle of what's actually an ongoing partnership between Concordia and Seniors Action Quebec,” Fitzgerald says.