The Senior Club is to help the seniors in the Chinese community to get out of the loneliness and get connected to the society. We give the elderly lectures to provide information and teach basic life skills in Canada, for instance, how to do shopping, how to see a doctor, how to use public transportation and how to use library. We organize recreational and social activities for them, for example, parties for festivals and regular get-togethers to do Tai Chi, to play poker/mahjong/chess, to exchange cooking ideas, etc. We also organize a senior chorus and dancing team. In the year of 2012, we took the senior club for a trip to see the lavender. We hold seminars on topics about the senior life, like health care and communications with younger generations.
The seniors in our community, not only perform at the West Island Chinese Spring Festival Gala each year, but also actively volunteered in cultural exchange activities. On November 22, 2017, we invited the members from Ressources Ethnoculturelles Contre l’Abus envers les AînéEs (RECAA) to give a workshop at our Center on the topic of maltreatment against the seniors. Our seniors participated actively in the discussion and some even participated in the drama designed as a part of the activity.
On September 29, 2017, the chorus of our senior’s club together with the Montreal Confucius School Chinese Folk Music Orchestra were invited to perform for the residents at Manoir Kirkland, a retirement residence. Since then, each year around the Spring Festival, our seniors accompanied by the other members of Montreal Confucius Art Troupe, visit and perform at the retirement center. Since January 2018, we launched the “Blue Haven Project”. Our seniors learn Taiji, Chinese Tea Ceremony and Chinese music from each other and participate in the cultural exchange activities in the nearby communities. They are no longer the sole care receiver, but volunteers to pass their warmth, skills and wisdom to the younger generation as well as their peers in other ethnic communities.
