DRAW YOUR STORY: Art and storytelling program for older adults
St. Dominic Village Senior Care Community, Houston, Texas
Supported by Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, 2022-2023
With support from the Schweitzer Fellowship, I co-founded Draw YOUR Story, an art and storytelling program for older adults to address social isolation and loneliness. Collaborating with University of Houston medical student Pelumi Oloyede, we recruited student volunteers to help with the program and foster intergenerational connections.
Each hour-long session has a theme and participants share stories related to the topic. While discussing their experiences, participants also create a small drawing on a 4” x 4” cardstock square. These squares were displayed in a collaborative art exhibition at the end of the program in May 2023. Through an IRB-approved study, we also evaluated the program’s impact on older adults and student volunteers through focus groups and surveys. Our findings were published in the International Review of Psychiatry.
We have led over two dozen program sessions since fall 2022, and presented the program at the international Health Humanities Consortium in Cleveland, the Gold Humanism Summit in Atlanta, and the American Academy of Neurology Annual Conference in Denver.
We mentored another group of Schweitzer Fellows to continue the program in 2023-2024. The program will be continued in 2024-2025 by another team of medical students.
final exhibition
With over 60 attendees, the final exhibition showcased dozens of drawings from older adults and medical students. Family and friends enjoyed live music, artwork displays and refreshments while learning the stories of their loved ones.
