Write My LifeBook

How a home-based Shaker business created an online platform called Write My LifeBook to help people write their biographies as well as the Youth + Senior Connections Program for school partnerships to provide activities for local assisted-living residents

Have you ever sat with a parent or a grandparent and thought about all of their incredible experiences? How we sit, so often, and listen to their stories, and yet, we’ll never hear it all? Shaker resident Ariana Del Re took on documenting the stories of our loved ones for us through Write My LifeBook, her home-based business and online platform for documenting stories.

“When my grandmother Marion began losing her memory, I realized we were losing generational memories and I wanted to write them down” Ariana explains. Write My LifeBook came out of this close connection with her maternal grandmother, and also from conversations with others who admitted that they wanted a place to record the stories of their loved ones, but due to work or other commitments, they just didn’t have the time.

We often don’t realize the importance of a tangible memory: a picture, a story, even a voicemail, until it’s too late. We long for moments to remember our loved ones by when they are no longer here, and tools like Write My LifeBook make this possible. The website boasts an entirely user-friendly interface filled with questions - some multiple-choice, some fill-in - which, depending on how answered, leads to the next question. The streamlined questionnaire results in a completely written, fully designed and printed book of one’s life story.

Before Ariana came up with the concept for Write My LifeBook, her relationship with her grandmother and the idea of transcribing her story for her inspired her to create a program called the Youth + Seniors Connections Program. Formerly a teacher, Ariana created the program as a way to “instill intergenerational partnerships between students and residents,” she says. Now, the program is in its 10th year.

Research shows that community partnerships improves student performance. The Youth + Seniors Connections Program pairs students, or technology mentors, with residents, the mentors of life. This experience engages two different groups in society who may not have much in common, except social interaction benefitting either group.

Seniors need interactions for their own well-being; social engagement benefits them, and, likewise, as research shows, today’s students have high social emotional needs. Students and seniors trade stories, physically making connections by employing one as listener, the other as teller, and exiting the conversation with empathy and connection they’ll each take with them forever.

Write My LifeBook and the Youth + Seniors Connections Program are vehicles of storytelling, one written and one spoken. Each is crucially important because all of our stories are important, regardless of who we are. Our perspectives, our truths, and our experiences of life weaved together in a story is fascinating to the person sitting beside us.

“Connecting people through this kind of programming, and passing down family stories is the greatest reward of my business; likewise, being able to hear stories, and connecting with people you otherwise wouldn’t speaks the rewards of owning a small business in general” explains Ariana. Spreading the word and making sure the benefits of this kind of programming are understood can be challenging, but it always begins with community.

Whether you’re part of an organization that looks for this kind of programming, or a community member, reach out, at any time to Ariana Del Re to talk about what Youth + Senior Connections Program looks like in your community. And, don’t forget to visit Write My LifeBook’s website to write your loved one’s story.