I started working with Stagebridge after assisting with the church in the 80s, so I’ve been able to see how our community has changed and evolved over the years.
After experiencing this organization as a volunteer, staff member, program director and student, I’m honored to be leading one of our most important programs, Seniors Reaching Out (SRO). And, honestly, I’ve been waiting.
Over the past two years, we had to put a pause on this program, so I focused on supporting the Performing Arts Institute (PAI). While I was trying to meet more and more new folks and create community connections, something became very clear: the SRO program heals both our students and our communities.
In the PAI classes, our students have fought off the isolation and loneliness that makes the impacts of aging even harder. As we return to in-person opportunities, SRO will provide diverse performances from Stagebridge students and community members, healing workshops, and special artistic sharing spaces including the return of Lunchtime Storytelling.
The thing I love most is that SRO can be the vessel for opportunities for students and artistic resources for assisted living and underrepresented communities. As a community, we have so much privilege to the power of getting together and sharing through the arts. Whether it’s the soul-shaking experience in a dance class, the histories relived through storytelling, or the magic of singing together in perfect harmony, we are quite powerful as artists.
Stagebridgers, I need you all to know that your presence as artists in these communities can stimulate the minds, bodies, spirits and overall healing of aging populations across the Bay Area.
If you can help us fund these programs, we can have more and more people experience all of this magic again. If not, contact me and let’s figure out how you can support getting art out to the people—whether as a performer, outreach volunteer, or more!
We should be sharing our art in any community that we can. This is the way we can heal ourselves and the world, little by little.
~Barbara Johnson, Seniors Reaching Our Manager