Aldersgate

By 2015, gentrification in Plaza Midwood has changed its landscape dramatically, becoming a popular area for new businesses, apartment complexes and night life. Because providing transportation to our children became more challenging by the day, and rent was nearly 1/5 of our annual budget, we were forced to find a place closer to where our families have been pushed to: The East Side.

In December 2016, after doing due diligence observing our program and mission from a distance, Aldersgate Senior Living Community invited ourBRIDGE to move into a beautiful building located in their 231 acres of land in the East side of Charlotte, the most culturally diverse area in the city. This building, our new home, is 3x bigger than our Plaza Midwood home and rent is $1 per year!

Because of this fantastic partnership with Aldersgate, we are in a unique position to include an intergenerational component to our programming.

ourBRIDGE for KIDS believes that senior residents are an often untapped resource in our community. Offering the benefit of lifetimes of experience – and the time to share it – the contributions that the senior community can make are enormous. By involving seniors in our educational community, we have seen first hand the mutually beneficial relationships that arise between our senior volunteers, our students, staff members and parents.

ourBRIDGE students will regularly visit the “Grandmas and Grandpas” at Aldersgate. We are fortunate to have the 231 acres of land Aldersgate owns to use as an extension of our center.