From Conversation to Culture Change: How Intergenerational Work Transforms Communities

It started, as many good things do, with a simple invitation.

The city was preparing to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the May Day Festival, a tradition rooted deeply in our town’s identity. Generations had grown up with it, children weaving ribbons around the Maypole, parents lining the streets, grandparents telling stories of how it used to be “back when.” This time, the organizers wanted something more than a reenactment. They wanted the celebration to mean something.

Someone asked a question that doesn’t get asked often enough: What if seniors were part of this, not just watching, but helping shape it?

When the idea was brought to the seniors’ board, there was a pause. Not because of hesitation, but because people understood the weight of the invitation. This wasn’t about nostalgia. This was about partnership. About trust. About standing shoulder to shoulder with a younger generation and saying, “Let’s build this together.”

The plan that emerged was bold in its simplicity. Twenty-four seniors would join Grade 5 students from three local schools to dance the Maypole together. Not perform for each other. Perform with each other. Organizers in their twenties, thirties, and forties would coordinate logistics alongside volunteers in their seventies and eighties. Everyone would have a role. No one would be a token.

What followed was something quietly powerful.

In school gyms and community halls, seniors learned steps alongside children young enough to be their great-grandchildren. There were missteps and laughter, ribbons tangled and untangled, stories exchanged between practice runs. A senior showed a child how to recover gracefully from a missed step. A child showed a senior a shortcut for remembering the pattern. No one was “helping” anyone. They were learning together.

This is where ageism begins to lose its grip.

So much discrimination thrives on distance, on the idea that “older” and “younger” are separate worlds with little to offer each other. Intergenerational work collapses that distance. It replaces assumptions with familiarity. It turns abstract respect into shared experience.

On the day of the festival, the four Maypoles stood tall in the centre of the arena, ribbons bright against the spring sky. As the music began, seniors and students moved together, weaving colour and rhythm into something unmistakably joyful. The crowd didn’t see “old” and “young.” They saw a community in motion.

And then something unexpected happened.

The seniors were invited back the following year, not as a novelty, but as tradition. They were asked to help kick off the next hundred years of May Day celebrations.

That’s culture change.

Intergenerational work doesn’t just soften attitudes; it reshapes systems. When young organizers see older adults as collaborators, it changes who gets invited to the table. When children grow up working alongside seniors, it rewrites what aging looks like in their minds. When seniors are trusted with visible, meaningful roles, it challenges the quiet narrative that usefulness has an expiry date.

Importantly, this work succeeds only when it’s grounded in equality. Not mentorship that flows one way. Not “keeping seniors busy.” True intergenerational projects are built on mutual respect and shared power. Each generation brings something essential: energy, perspective, memory, creativity, and steadiness. When one is missing, the whole structure weakens.

The beauty is that action doesn’t have to be grand to be transformative.

A community garden planned by teens and tended by retirees. A storytelling project where students record elders’ histories, and elders learn new technology in return. A neighbourhood safety initiative where older residents’ lived knowledge complements younger residents’ organizing skills. These are not expensive solutions. They are human ones.

Ageism thrives in isolation. It withers in connection.

The May Day dance mattered not because it was perfect, but because it was shared. It reminded everyone watching and participating that communities are strongest when all ages are visible, valued, and involved in shaping the future.

Conversation is where change begins. Culture shifts when we move from talking about each other to working with each other.

Sometimes, all it takes is an invitation and the courage to say yes.