Jewish Museum brings in-home series to homebound seniors

Believed to be the first of its kind, the Jewish Museum in New York City has collaborated with Selfhelp’s Virtual Senior Center to make it possible for homebound seniors to have a virtual museum experience. Selfhelp is providing ways for the homebound to connect to local senior centers via computers and the Internet to they can participate in live web-cammed classes. From Broadway World: For the country’s millions of homebound seniors, innovative collaborations like the one between Selfhelp’s Virtual Senior Center and The Jewish Museum may make staying at home a much more interesting proposition. The collaboration is believed to be the first in-home museum art series designed for homebound seniors allowing video interaction among senior participants and the museum’s educators. The June 1 program (which editors are welcome to attend by internet connection at 2:00 p.m., June 1) will focus on The Jewish Museum’s current exhibition, Collecting Matisse and Modern Masters: The Cone Sisters of Baltimore. Featured are over 50 works from The Baltimore Museum of Art’s internationally renowned Cone Collection including paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by such artists as Matisse, Picasso, Cézanne, Renoir, and van Gogh. The exhibition reveals Claribel and Etta Cone’s bold and idiosyncratic affinity for modern art which was indeed ahead of its time. “We are thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with Selfhelp’s Virtual Senior Center to bring these exceptional works of art, and the inspiring story of the sisters behind the collection, to homebound seniors – a critically underserved, overlooked segment of our country,” said Nelly Silagy Benedek, Director of Education at The Jewish Museum.

[SNIP] The Virtual Senior Center has focused on providing innovative ways for homebound seniors to connect to a local senior center via computers and the Internet, so seniors can participate in live web-cammed classes. The VSC made its debut in New York about 15 months ago, as a test project developed by the City of New York, Microsoft and Selfhelp Community Services. Selfhelp, a nonprofit organization founded 75 years ago to help Holocaust survivors fleeing Nazi persecution, provides affordable housing and other services to a broad base of more than 20,000 seniors in the New York area.]]>