Hip-hop grannies ... Dance for seniors, youth 'makes you feel alive'

After losing her husband of 43 years last July, Dorothy Gordon would cry at the sight of couples in restaurants.

Widowed in her mid-60s after many years of caring for her ailing husband, Walter, the Streamwood woman felt depressed and isolated.

"Finally, I said, 'Enough is enough.' I had to take control of my life," Gordon said.

Though she didn't think of herself as a "senior," she ventured over to the Hanover Township Senior Center in Bartlett one day for lunch. There, she found companionship, compassion and a sense of belonging from others who reached out to her.

Now Gordon's become a regular at township senior events. So when she got invited to attend last week's "Hip Hop Sock Hop Snowflake Ball" - the township's first intergenerational dance for seniors and teens - her only question was whether she could invite her granddaughter, Candice Gallagher.

The pair were among dozens of seniors, tweens and teens who, at least for a few hours, closed the generation gap with dance. DJ Reggie and the Unique Divides dance group offered hip-hop dance lessons, while a senior patron demonstrated The Stroll, a line dance popular in the 1950s, to the younger crowd.

Tracey Colagrossi, the township's senior services program manager, said past programs have brought younger children and seniors together. But this time, the township wanted to find an intergenerational event that would bring older kids into the fold.

She worked with Astor Avenue Community Center Program Manager Debbie Swiatek to recruit youths from township offerings like the after-school Teen Cafe program.

At the end of the dance, "everybody, including the teens and the seniors, was saying, 'When are we going to do this again?'" Colagrossi said.

Perhaps not soon enough for Gordon, who said she's gained a new lifeline through the township senior services.

"It makes you feel alive," she said. "It makes me feel younger."