Stop, sit and listen: New doc celebrates 10 years of Elder Wisdom campaign | CBC News
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For Waterloo’s Tom Farr, taking part in a documentary for the first time was a surreal experience.
“To have a camera crew follow you from the time you get out of bed, until you basically go back to bed, like they followed me the whole day, it was just surreal to be honest with you,” Farr told CBC News.
Farr was among five residents from Schlegel Villages in southwestern Ontario that took part in a new documentary called The Green Bench to highlight 10 years of the long-term care home’s Elder Wisdom campaign.
Schlegel Villages has 20 locations in the province as well as the Schlegel UW Research Institute for Aging in Waterloo.
The campaign, launched in 2016, encourages people to sit on a green bench and speak with seniors and learn from them while breaking down ageist stereotypes and celebrate what seniors bring to the community.
“The young people now don’t sit down with their grandparents and their parents and hear their stories like how I use to hear stories,” Farr said.
The documentary followed the residents as they took a journey to a special place in their lives. For Farr, who is almost 60, it was visiting his childhood home in Elmira.
The Green Bench is a new documentary focusing on seniors sharing stories from their lives. The documentary follows five Schlegel Village residents as they journey to a meaningful place in their lives. For many, like Waterloo’s Tom Farr, it was home. He spoke with CBC K-W’s Carmen Groleau about what it was like to be part of the documentary and how he felt visiting his childhood home in Elmira.
He said the visit was emotional as he hadn’t seen the home in a long time.
“When I was 23, I turned down buying the farm from my parents and when I look at what that farm is worth now and what they were offering it to me for, like hindsight is 20-20 of course, but the nice thing is it’s friends of mine who own it now,” he said.
Farr said seeing the house brought back childhood memories. It’s still the original house, but with some renovations, he said.
“All the stuff they did to the interior was stuff my mom dreamed of and they brought that dream to life,” Farr said.
“They put a pool in right where my mom wanted one. It’s nice to see that they did all the renovations, but it’s still the old house.”
After visiting his childhood home, the film crew and Schlegel Villages staff set up an Elder Wisdom bench at the Elmira cenotaph, where Farr spoke to community members for four hours.
“It was an honour to sit on it,” he said.
‘It spoke to me,’ director says
Sarah Fodey of SandBay Entertainment is the film’s director and the subject matter is personal.
When an opportunity came up to make a film on the Elder Wisdom bench, she jumped on it.
“We have a society that is hyper-focused on youth and I don’t think we spend enough time interacting with and listening to seniors, so at the heart of this undertaking, that was a personal motivation for me,” Fodey CBC News.
“I loved it from its onset, I read a small blurb about the opportunity and it spoke to me, to put it quite simply.”
Fodey said she felt like the right person to tell the story, having grown up with many seniors, including her parents.
“I desperately wanted to tell this story,” she said.
Fodey says the film invites the viewer to slow down and recognize seniors play a big part in the community.
It’s also an invitation to talk to the seniors in our lives, Fodey adds.
The documentary will premier at Centre in the Square on Tuesday. Fodey said she is excited to reunite with the seniors in the film.
“I haven’t seen most of our seniors since we wrapped production, so it will be a wonderful reunion,” she said.