YOUR grandparents may not have had blogs when they were young, but that doesn't mean they weren't blogworthy.
A new Tumblr website titled Before They Were Grandparents aims to give grandchildren the chance to show the world just how cool their grandparents were back in the day before social media took over our lives.
"We don't give (seniors) enough credit for having their own wishes and desires," said Chris Clark, the Vancouver-area director of Bayshore Home Health, the home care company that created the site. "We look at them differently when they're aging. We paint them with a bit of a different brush."
The goal of this project, he said, is to remind people why their parents are worth caring for well, and just how cool they can be.
The idea came about as the company was wondering how to get people interested in planning for their future care, but found people just weren't that interested in talking about it. At the same time, many of the company's caregivers came back to the office with inspirational stories every day, planting the seed for the future project.
The company teamed up with Village&Co., a social media company, to launch the project last summer with a live storytelling event in Vancouver, featuring several North Shore stories. It drew in a crowd of all ages. Now, anyone can post a story on the site along with a photo of their grandparents when they were young.
"Social media is just ripe for storytelling. That's what it is: connecting, having a safe space to share stories they didn't think they could," said Lizzy Karp, an account manager for Village&Co.
The website started locally, but it's catching on far afield, said Clark. "It's got legs. There are people in Europe submitting stories; there are people from the States; it's coming from all over the world now."
To share your grandparents' stories, or just to browse others, check online at www. beforetheyweregrandparents.com.
