Allan Appel Photo
Haywood with 6-month-old grandson Anthony and husband Carl Nixon.
They might not haven been cavorting in their bathing suits in the splash pad or yelling to go higher on the playground swings. Yet the older folks, about 40 strong, were definitely the center of attention and having a fine time of it Friday at Dover Beach Park by the Quinnipiac River in Fair Haven.
The older folks were being feted at an event organized for Grandparents Day.
10-year-old Nierra Peters and g-ma Cheryl Covington, who helps her with schoolwork and brushing her teeth.
The event, featuring hot dogs, burgers, donuts, rock painting, and quiet talk under the shading trees, was organized by Bella Vista Alder Renee Haywood along with Fair Haven Alder Kenneth Reveiz. They vanned over several dozen seniors from the Bella Vista senior complex across the river and from River Run senior housing development on Grand Avenue near Front Street.
Haywood said that what motivated her was the large number of grandparents at Bella Vista, many of whom spend hours caring for their grandkids.
“It’d be a great release for them,” she said as she started the fire and then began to grill the dogs and burgers.
Looney discusses grandparenting and politics with Bella Vista-ite Anita Walters
As she looked out at the river, and people lined up for the lunch, she expressed what she hoped the elders would get out of the day: “You’d be suprised at how much beauty is nearby. I want them to have just an easy-breezy day.”
To a person, about a half dozen people interviewed said that while they love being grandparents, many people don’t sufficiently appreciate the hours they put in taking care of grandkids.
Julia Kelly was having Marge Ottenbreit, the director of the Elm City Parks Conservatory (ECPC) and one of the event’s sponsors, paint a rock for the littlest of her three great-grandkids.
“We don’t get the attention we deserve,” she said. Kelly, who has eight grandchildren and three great-grands, the latter ages 5, 6, and 1, spends four hours every other day of the week taking care of the great-grands in order to give her daughter, who has a stressful job, a break.
Ottenbreit with the painted rock for Julia Kelly’s great-grandaughter.
Kelly said there’s a big plus side to add to the calculus of the occasional complaints: “I love it. it keeps me healthy. I have a lot of health issues but I don’t think about them when I’m with the kids. They make you alive.”
Likewise, when he and his son and grandson went to a recent Boston Red Sox-Toronto Blue Jays baseball game, State Senate President and local resident Marty Looney said he didn’t think about the aches and pains of legislation. He thought about having fun, especially with his grandson.
Looney dropped by with State Rep. Al Paolillo, who helped Haywood organize the event. Looney noted how many grandparents step in often not only to help out, but even to take custody of their grandkids.
Click here for a story of one remarkable family whose grandparents came to the rescue of the kids of a child struggling with drug abuse. Of the 20,000 kids in the New Haven public schools, many live in homes where the grandparents are the primary care-givers.
Another event organizer, Kurtis Kearney, pitching ECPC’s New Year’s Day polar plunge event.
Looney grew up nearby on Wolcott Street and said he used to bike to Dover Beach as a boy to swim. He said he could not recall another day in Fair Haven dedicated to grandparents.
Paollilo said he wouldn’t be surprised if the day, which Haywood said she is going to make an annual event in the Fair Haven wards, might catch on citywide.