Playtime revisited

Rosie and Dave Davison have spent much of their retirement working.

Retired social workers, the couple has logged more than a thousand hours each year for more than a decade tending to infants and reading to children at Northfield Montessori in Northfield, Minnesota, through the National Foster Grandparent Program.

Residents at the nearby Northfield Retirement Community, they say fellow residents ask them why they still volunteer. She says, in part, it’s arriving to a school of excited children’s faces each day. “At eight in the morning, where else do you get greeted like that?”

“We hope we can work there until we’re 100,” Rosie said to the Northfield News. She and Dave turn 80 this year. “It’s just so much fun. It’s the most rewarding thing we’ve done since I don’t know when.”

Montessori Director Jeff Longenecker say the couple do more than take care of children, they provide them with security, support and love. And the couple’s nicknames, Grandma Rosie and Grandpa Dave, are one way the children acknowledge that.

“It’s a win-win for the bigger community,” Longenecker says. “They are happy and you can tell they’re glad to be here.”

Nicole Stempak

Nicole was Senior Editor at I Advance Senior Care and Long Term Living Magazine 2015-2017. She has a Journalism degree from Kent State University and is finalizing a master’s degree in Information Architecture and Management. She has extensive studies in the digital user experience and in branding online media. She has worked as an editor and writer for various B2B publications, including Business Finance.