Novi Students Compose Winter Poems with Fox Run 'Grandparents'

Fourth grade students at Novi's Franklin Road Christian School visit their "grandpas" and "grandmas" every month at the Fox Run retirement community.

The students adopt grandparents in the fall and continue to visit them throughout the school year for crafting, caroling, planting flowers and more. January's activity was to read and write winter poems.

>>See the video above of Friday's event and meet the students' teacher, Geri Yost, who runs the program.

"The goal is to teach kids to think outside of themselves," she said.

Fourth grade students have been pairing off with seniors at Fox Run for 10 years. Yost said the program has surpassed anything she expected.

"These people feel needed," she said. "It's a total win-win."

Yost said it fosters long-term relationships, as some students from the pilot program still send cards and letters to their "grandparents" years later.