Location: Montreal, Quebec
Lead Organization: WIN Intergenerational Network (WIN) (https://winmontreal.org/)
Program Lead: Tracie Swim
School Partner: Elizabeth Ballantyne School, Montreal West
Participants: Older adults (GrandPals), supported by Extra Miles senior visiting program and WIN, Grade 6 students, teachers, and school staff
Part of the GrandPals Network in Action
Across Canada, communities are adapting the GrandPals model to reflect their local context, relationships, and strengths. In Montreal, Quebec, the program is being coordinated through WIN Intergenerational Network, a community organization that brings older adults and young people together through a wide range of intergenerational initiatives.
Within that broader work, GrandPals has become an important part of WIN's approach. It offers older adults and students the opportunity to build relationships over time through regular, face-to-face conversations rooted in storytelling, curiosity, and shared experience.
This setting brings a unique dynamic. GrandPals is not simply an isolated program. It complements the many other ways that WIN supports connection across generations, while giving students something increasingly rare: sustained, meaningful conversation with older adults whose stories, humour, questions, and perspectives are real.
At Elizabeth Ballantyne School in Montreal West, WIN and the school have also adapted the program to reflect the interests of their Grade 6 students. Alongside familiar GrandPals themes, they introduced new topics such as humour, fun and thrills, games, heroes, and being a good person, creating space for conversations that felt especially relevant and engaging.
Building Relationships, One Conversation at a Time
In Montreal, the WIN Intergenerational Network, together with its partners, has spent years creating opportunities for older adults and young people to connect in meaningful ways.
Founded in 2017, WIN is a network of community organizations, schools, researchers, libraries, senior centres, and local residents who believe in the value of bringing generations together. Based in the west end of Montreal, the organization helps create partnerships, share resources, and support innovative intergenerational programs across the city.
Led in part by a founding member, the Director, Tracie Swim, WIN brings together schools, community organizations, older adults, and youth to foster intergenerational relationships across Montreal. Their work includes pen pal programs, story sharing, Black History Month programming, community storytelling initiatives, partnerships with organizations supporting people living with memory loss, and GrandPals.
For WIN, GrandPals is one valuable part of a much broader effort to connect generations across Montreal. The organization sees the program as a way to deepen the relationships already being built through its wider network of schools, community groups, libraries, senior centres, and local organizations.
For the past several years, WIN has partnered with GrandPals to bring older adults and Grade 6 students together at Elizabeth Ballantyne School in Montreal West.
Each year, the program looks a little different. New students, new older adults, new classroom dynamics, and new themes shape the experience.
As Tracie explains:
"Every community is different and every cohort is different. It changes the dynamics and it changes the conversations."
This year, however, something felt especially different.
A Program That Grew With the Students
This was the fourth time WIN had introduced GrandPals in the school. Many of the students had already participated in some form the year before. The teachers felt that it was time to try something new.
Instead of focusing only on the traditional GrandPals themes, the school and WIN chose a fresh set of topics that reflected what the students were most interested in and tied in with the curriculum.
GrandPals Network provided a bank of possible themes to choose from. Once Tracie and the teachers selected the topics that best fit their students, the GrandPals team created the accompanying videos, question banks, graphics, and platform updates needed to support the new themes. Tracie said, "The support was amazing! Timely and proactive."
The result was a series of conversations around themes such as:
- Humour, Fun and Thrills (Video Link)
- Games (Video Link)
- Heroes (Video Link)
- Being a Good Person (Video Link)
The change gave the students and older adults more freedom to shape the conversations naturally.
"The stories and the conversation develop as their relationships develop and they get to know each other."
The new videos, themes, and question banks gave students and older adults a helpful starting point for conversation. From there, the discussions often grew in their own direction as relationships developed.
As one older adult reflected after the "Heroes" session:
"We were just enjoying being with each other."
In many ways, that became the heart of the program.
Creating Space for Real Connection
The GrandPals program at Elizabeth Ballantyne School brought together 11 groups of Grade 6 students and older adults across two classrooms.
Before the classroom sessions began, WIN invested time in helping the older adults prepare.
The older adults met together in advance, learned about the students, discussed neurodiversity and classroom dynamics, and reflected on how to build strong conversations.
The preparation helped the older adults feel more confident and also created something unexpected: the older adults began building relationships with each other too.
"This is really an awesome opportunity for the older adults to connect with each other as well and learn each other's stories."
WIN also shared information back and forth between teachers and older adults to help create strong matches and prepare everyone for the first session.
By the time the groups met in the classroom, there was already a foundation of trust.
Lightbulb Moments
After 15 years of intergenerational work, Tracie says there are still "lightbulb moments" every year.
Sometimes it is a student realizing that older adults want to have real conversations.
Sometimes it is an older adult discovering how thoughtful, empathetic, and helpful students can be.
And sometimes it is the teachers who notice something new.
One teacher commented on how students who struggled in traditional classroom settings were able to shine in the GrandPals program.
Another teacher reflected that some students seemed more caring, more engaged, and more comfortable in this environment.
"There's just a different feeling in the space."
The program also created opportunities for students who might not otherwise have connected. Some were quieter in class. But in the small groups, students found their voice.
The conversations became more open and less awkward as the weeks went on.
"The conversations are more open, less stilted."
A Highlight of the School Year
In Quebec, Grade 6 is the final year of elementary school before students move on to high school. It is often treated as a graduation year, filled with field trips, special events, and end-of-year celebrations.
Yet Tracie has found that, for many students, GrandPals becomes one of the highlights of that year.
When teachers ask students what stood out most, GrandPals is often one of the first things they mention.
One former student even returned to the school and asked:
"Are you doing GrandPals again this year?"
For Tracie and the teachers, that simple question said a great deal.
"That's huge."
Teachers also noticed that students became more confident communicators over the course of the program. They learned how to ask thoughtful questions, listen closely, and build relationships over time.
Flexibility Matters
One of the most important lessons from WIN's experience is that there is no single "right" way to run an intergenerational program.
The strongest programs begin with a clear plan, but they also leave room to adapt.
"You can do it because you have a solid plan A with a backup."
Every school, every classroom, and every group of older adults is different. Schedules change. Students have different needs and personalities. Some conversation themes resonate more than others.
Rather than trying to create a perfect formula, Tracie focuses on creating the conditions for success and then adjusting along the way.
Scheduling is often the biggest challenge. Grade 6 students have busy calendars, teachers need to find room in the school day, and older adults have different schedules and availability.
That is why WIN begins planning early. In September, Tracie asks older adults about their availability before the program even begins. That way, the schedule can be built around the people involved.
For Tracie, the goal is not to follow a rigid model. It is to keep learning what works in each community.
"We don't talk about 'best practices.' We talk about promising practices, approaches we can adapt to different realities."
Looking Ahead
The experience in Montreal shows that intergenerational programs do not need to be complicated to be powerful.
What matters most is creating space for people to talk, listen, laugh, and learn from one another.
In Montreal West, that space has been created again and again through the partnership between WIN Intergenerational Network, Elizabeth Ballantyne School, and GrandPals.
And each year, the relationships continue to grow.
"We were just enjoying being with each other."
Key Takeaways for Other Communities
1. Start with a strong plan, but leave room to adapt as relationships and conversations develop.
WIN approaches each year knowing that schedules shift, students change, and no two cohorts are the same. Having a solid plan gives everyone confidence, but building in flexibility is what allows the program to keep working when real life gets in the way.
2. Preparation matters. Taking time to orient and support older adults (and students) helps build confidence before the classroom sessions begin.
Before the first classroom visit, WIN brought older adults together to learn about the students, discuss neurodiversity, and reflect on how to build strong conversations. That investment paid off quickly. By the time the groups met, there was already a foundation of trust in place.
3. The best conversations often begin with a theme or question, but grow into something deeper.
The videos, question banks, and themed sessions gave students and older adults a starting point. From there, the conversations took on a life of their own. As relationships developed over the weeks, the discussions became more open, more personal, and more meaningful.
About the GrandPals Network
GrandPals is a growing network of schools, residences, libraries, charities, and community organizations working together to strengthen intergenerational connection across Canada.
Communities like Montreal and the WIN Intergenerational Network demonstrate how the model can be adapted to fit the unique interests, relationships, and strengths of each community, while preserving the relational heart of the program.
Interested in exploring GrandPals in your community? Visit the GrandPals Contact Page to start a conversation with the Network.