Harvey Weiss, center, dances during a Granpods event at Carter’s in Beacon on Feb. 19. The group organizes social outings for older people to combat social isolation.
Kelly Marsh/For the Times Union
On a recent Thursday evening, drinks flowed and plates of pizza, fries and chicken fingers disappeared at Carter’s, a restaurant and event space in Beacon. Despite a last-minute change of venue, more than 20 people attended. Some transformed a corner of the dining room into an impromptu dance floor. By the time Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Boogie Wonderland” filled the room, even the shyest were on their feet.
It sounds like a typical night at a popular Hudson Valley bar. But the average age of these party animals was 81. Many hadn’t been dancing in years.
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“I’m enjoying my golden years,” said Stephanie Ward, microphone in hand, before she began singing Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” swaying from side to side, her fingers pointing upward.
Those same hands had taken care of her ailing mother, who passed away three years ago at 93. Ward then moved to Beacon from New York City because she wanted to “enjoy her golden years,” a phrase that has become a motto of sorts as she’s entered her 70s.
Unlike Redding’s melancholic song, Ward isn’t sitting idly by these days. She and a group of seniors from the Dutchess County Office for the Aging’s Friendship Center have found a new avenue for connection and enrichment in this later stage of life: Granpods, an initiative that brings older adults together in community spaces for hangouts and adventures.
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“We’re not settling for this belief that life has ended and there isn’t more to explore,” said Beacon resident Jonas Weitzman, a 30-year-old nursing home administrator who founded Granpods in October. “We’re not acquiescing to the end of our days. We are present, experiencing it, smiling. We are joyous.”
Twice a month, Granpods gets older residents of Dutchess and Orange counties into the world — into cooking classes, cafe hangouts and an intergenerational morning dance party. For them, fun is an act of defiance, a rebuttal to the tired notion that life is over after retirement, that aging means isolation, dementia, or the confines of a nursing home. As Weitzman puts it, “good hangs have no age limit.”
Scenes from Granpods’ event in Beacon earlier this month.
Kelly Marsh/For the Times Union
Granpods launched as New York’s population is rapidly aging. About 4.6 million state residents are 60 or older, a share projected to make up a quarter of the population by 2030. The shift is driving a growing demand for home care, as most older adults prefer to age in place. Yet that option is often out of reach due to poverty and a severe shortage of home care workers, which leaves many families scrambling.
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At the same time, loneliness has emerged as a public health concern, particularly among older adults. At least one-third of adults 65 and older report feeling lonely — a condition linked to higher risks of dementia and early death. Weitzman says Granpods’ small-group, community-based approach aims to tackle two crises at once by “busting the walls down of nursing homes (and) ending the isolation and expense of home care.”
“Seniors need to get out, they need to be active, they need fellowship. Because now seniors sometimes get depressed, they get dementia. It helps them to live longer and to enjoy life,” Ward said. “I never thought that I was going to have this much fun in my life.”
A fun solution to a systemic problem
Weitzman never intended to go into elderly care. In 2020, he was working for a hospitality startup in New York City when his grandmother developed a heart arrhythmia that eventually landed her in a nursing home. Weitzman said the quality of life there “was not where it could be.”
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“That person is eating instant mashed potatoes slathered in the worst-looking gravy I’ve ever seen,” he remembers thinking. “I’ve been waiting for the aide to come help them for two hours. This can’t go on.”
Hoping to improve nursing homes, Weitzman left his career in Manhattan to make $14 an hour “wiping butts and giving showers” as a certified nursing assistant in New Mexico. The work was grueling, but he was hooked.
“Humanity is just happening at all times,” he said about nursing homes.
Granpods founder Jonas Weitzman, right, dances with members. Weitzman founded the club after working in nursing homes and seeing how they can be socially isolating.
Kelly Marsh/For the Times Union
Weitzman returned to New York a year later and passed the exam to become a nursing home administrator. His first offer was to lead the Fishkill Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing. But he was later disciplined after taking a group of residents on a trip to Dia Beacon — a decision he said drew scrutiny for the cost and the perceived risk of bringing residents outside the facility. The regional administrator then prohibited these outings, he said.
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Weitzman found that while nursing homes offer opportunities for socialization, they are too often sterile and restrictive in enriching residents’ lives. Home care, by contrast, allows people to age in the comfort of their own homes but is prohibitively expensive, socially isolating and labor-inefficient, with one worker assigned to each individual, he said.
His solution was starting Granpods.
“All these regulations are founded with such beauty in mind,” Weitzman said. “But no one actually wants to live their lives devoid of risk and under a manual.”
‘It’s just electric’
Weitzman partnered with Beacon’s Friendship Center, where site manager Ellen Gersh, who is 65, was immediately on board. For Granpods’ first event, they took a small group of seniors apple- and pumpkin-picking. The next day, another group turned the harvest into a three-course meal in the industrial kitchen at River Valley Arts Center in Wappingers Falls.
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So far, Granpods has hosted five events, all free with transportation provided. Weitzman relies on donations to keep the party going and has raised $2,000 from friends and family. The next event — another Brew and Groove dance party — is set for March at Beacon’s Kitchen and Coffee.
“It’s just electric,” Weitzman said about the recent hangouts, which bring different generations together.
So much can be learned from listening to an elder’s wisdom, but the seniors are reaping the benefits, too, Weitzman said. Stephanie Fogerty, who barely spoke at the first event, now belts out “Earth Angel” for the group every chance she gets.
Left: Cathy Klitfel and Ernestine “Tina” Blount. Right: Ellen Gersh and Larry Levy.
Kelly Marsh/For the Times Union
Top: Cathy Klitfel and Ernestine “Tina” Blount. Bottom: Ellen Gersh and Larry Levy.
Kelly Marsh/For the Times Union
Granpods member Ernestine “Tina” Blount, left, talks with Graiden B. during an event.
Kelly Marsh/For the Times Union
At 92, Evelyn McNiff said she would likely be home watching television if not for Granpods. On Thursday evening, however, she stepped onto the dance floor multiple times despite her limited mobility.
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For now, Granpods operates as a party organizer under a nonprofit, which provides insurance, run by two of Weitzman’s friends. Social Adult Day Services are the closest model, Weitzman said, but that doesn’t allow for bringing seniors to different locations. Weitzman ultimately hopes to grow Granpods into a licensed agency that provides a lower-cost version of home care across the Hudson Valley.
Ernestine “Tina” Blount, 88, was one of the seniors reluctant to join at first. But by the end of the evening on Thursday, Blount swayed in a slow dance with Weitzman, her eyes closed and grinning ear to ear, as Gersh performed Martin Hamlisch’s “What I Did for Love.”
“As a culture, we’ve said to (older adults), ‘You have to go to something called a center each day, so this is the allotment you’re supposed to take up,’” Weitzman said later. “Nah. Let’s take you to a bar. Let’s take you to an apple orchard. Let’s take up space, dudes.”