Link to the Senior Stories podcast here.
Created by Celeste Martin and Sofia Vikas, who are completing their Senior year at Washington International School, “Senior Stories” is a podcast on Spotify that records the poignant memories of retired people in Metropolitan Washington DC. The stories are about lived experiences – such as what it was like to attend Woodstock in August 1969, or how it felt to be a therapist at an abortion clinic in the 1980s. According to podcast creators Celeste and Sofia, the podcast “bridges the generation gap one story at a time.”
The idea to start a podcast came from their own experiences talking with grandparents and others whose memories of childhood or early career years are time capsules of eras long gone. Sofia recalls listening raptly to her grandparents talk about their childhood in Ecuador, and Celeste was so moved by what was intended to be a 15-minute interview for a school assignment with a 97-year-old neighbor that she spent “many hours in enriching conversation” with him instead.
The resulting collaboration, “Senior Stories with Celeste and Sofia,” won their school’s Community, Equity and Justice Award in 2024 when they were juniors. The podcast, they reasoned, will “increase crossover between generations and reduce negative bias against the elderly community.” They used the award’s grant money to buy professional microphones, and the podcast took off.
They began by working with Sunrise Senior Living residents, and soon realized the rich vein of humanity is virtually untapped all around them. In addition to building their podcast, they are structuring its future, taking pains to ensure that interviewers who take over honor its intent of amplifying the voices of the nation’s senior citizens.
“It doesn’t really feel like we are doing a service. We are the ones who benefit by hearing these stories,” Sofia said.