Metro Philadelphia
In celebration of National Kinship Care Month, Philadelphia-area grandparents and their grandchildren came together at the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging (PCA) to celebrate grandparents with a day of food, fun and connection across generations.
Hosted by PCA and UnitedHealthcare, the free Celebrate Grandparents event brought grandparents and grandchildren together to share a meal together, take home produce bags filled with healthy food provided by The Food Trust, and connected with community organizations sharing resources to help grandfamilies thrive.
“UnitedHealthcare is proud to join with the Philadelphia Corporation for Aging to honor the grandparents of Philadelphia and all they do to support their families throughout the year. Community celebrations like this help create stronger bonds and connection, while providing important resources to help grandfamilies live healthy, active lives,” said Blair Boroch, CEO, UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Pennsylvania.
Families also enjoyed a photo booth, arts and crafts, a reading corner, games and dancing. Grandparents brought their favorite family recipes to share, and each family took home a special recipe book of the collected recipes.
“It’s good to celebrate Grandparents Day because we only get our birthdays; we get Mother’s Day, we get Father’s Day, but Grandparents Day is something very special because it gets me pampered, gets me out of the house, and it’s just a good thing to do. I enjoy being a grandparent,” said Arnette Best.
Nearly 8 million children nationwide live in households headed by grandparents or other relatives, and in roughly 1 in 3 of these homes, neither parent is present. In Pennsylvania, more than 235,000 grandparents are responsible for their grandchildren. These numbers reflect both the challenges and the extraordinary contributions of grandparents, who provide stability, love and connection across generations.
“We wanted to honor and recognize the work that grandparents do every day to help their grandchildren and to highlight the services available to help make their lives easier,” said Pamela Diaconis, development manager at PCA. “There is so much available to older adults raising grandchildren, and to older adults in general, and often they don’t know it’s there.”
Every grandparent took home a grocery bag filled with healthy food, and community events like this help meet that need close to home. About 1 in 10 adults age 50 and older face food insecurity.
“A lot of people who are grandparents are seniors, and it needs to be recognized there is help out there,” said Sheila Watts, who brought her grandchildren to the event. “You have to realize that we’re up in age, so you can’t move around and do too much. A lot of grandparents have a disability, but we do what we can, how we can, when we can. This helps a lot with that.”
Resources, healthy activities and information for grandparents is available online at celebrategrandparents.com
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Keywords
Philadelphia grandparents,
Philadelphia Corporation for Aging,
grandfamilies,
National Kinship Care Month,
UnitedHealthcare,
older adults,
Philadelphia families