 On September 16 at 11:30 a.m., community leaders, nonprofit innovators, students, and senior living professionals gathered at the Leesburg Fire House Co. #1 (215 Loudoun St SW, Leesburg, VA) for the 2nd Annual Intergenerational Summit. The event was produced in partnership with Sencura Home Care, the Loudoun Senior Interest Network (LSIN), the Northern Virginia Senior Resource Network (NVSRN), and the Positive Aging Community/Beacon Newspapers, with support from a long list of sponsors including A Family Tie, Arbor Terrace of Herndon, Bristol Hospice, Capital Caring Health, Caring Considerations, Dignity Memorial, Empower Mobility, Encompass, Heritage Hall Leesburg, Interstate Moving, Relocation and Logistics, JSSA, Karter Schools, Lay to Rest, Next Day Access, Organizing Mentors, Pathways in Aging, Personic Health, Relief Transportation, White Glove Solution, and Waltonwood at Ashburn. Steve Gurney, founder of the Positive Aging Community, opened the event by thanking the sponsors who made it possible and framing the day's purpose: to inspire those working in senior living and aging services to think beyond serving older adults in isolation, and instead to build integrated, intergenerational programs. "There is so much value in connecting the generations," Gurney told the room. "It eliminates the age stigmas that are out there... it should be integrated communities, integrated programs, you name it." What followed was a showcase of programs spanning government agencies, private businesses, nonprofits, senior living communities, and — most strikingly — a duo of student innovators still in high school and college. Government Leading the Way: Fairfax County's Intergenerational Workshops Allegra Joffe of the Fairfax County Area Agency on Aging opened the panel by explaining what an Area Agency on Aging does and how family caregivers — a category many people don't realize they fall into — can access free support services. Since 2022, her office has run intergenerational workshops that bring children and older family members together for shared activities like dance, drama, art, and martial arts, with sessions recorded so families can revisit them later. Her key message to attendees: almost any activity can be reframed and advertised as something a whole family can do together, at whatever mobility or skill level participants have. Blending Cognitive Care Across the Lifespan Dr. Olivia Odeh, co-founder of Diverse Cognitive and a partner with Waverly Manor Cognitive Centers, spoke about an unusual model that treats cognitive health — whether dementia, autism, or intellectual disabilities — as a lifespan-wide issue rather than something siloed by age. Grounded in applied behavior analysis and Montessori methods, her work challenges the stigma that neurodiverse individuals, young or old, are unaware or disengaged. She traced her passion for the work back to childhood visits to assisted living facilities with her mother, and later to caring for her own grandmother with dementia. Her call to action was simple: connection doesn't require a grand initiative or a big budget — it starts with showing up and looking someone in the eye. From Nonprofit Founder to National Expansion: HerraLink One of the summit's most anticipated updates came from Isabella Solano, who founded HerraLink as a high school senior to connect volunteers with older adults in senior communities. In the year since she last spoke at the summit, HerraLink has been acquired by Goodwin Living, grown to roughly 1,200 volunteers, and now partners with 100 universities and high schools serving 15 senior communities across the DMV. Solano introduced her ambassador program, which trains student volunteers to lead programming independently, and brought three current ambassadors on stage to share what the experience has meant to them — including a story about residents asking whether a volunteer's wedding could be rescheduled so she wouldn't miss her Saturday trivia shift. Solano closed with an announcement that HerraLink is preparing to expand nationwide. Student Innovators Take the Stage Two young speakers drew some of the day's most emotional responses. Lakshmi Katrapati, a computer science student at George Mason University, described how a neighbor's $30,000 scam loss — triggered by a celebrity deepfake — pushed her to start giving presentations to older adults about AI-generated scams. Citing FTC figures that put AI scam losses in 2026 at roughly $200 billion, with about $82 billion targeting seniors, Katrapati has since expanded her presentations from local senior centers to Fairfax, Loudoun, and beyond. Meghana Nannapaneni, a junior at Chantilly High School, presented Sage, a web-based application she built after winning the Fairfax County Public Schools Shark Tank Technology Challenge. Sage pairs older adults with a conversational AI companion that surfaces health concerns from everyday conversation, turns spoken memories into written life-story chapters, offers cognitive brain games, and gives family caregivers a dashboard of health cards and cognitive trend data. Nannapaneni traced the idea back to years of volunteering in senior living communities alongside her mother, who works in geriatric care, and to noticing firsthand how memory loss shows up in small, repeated moments. Sage is currently free and available at sage4health.com. Established Organizations Show What's Possible at Scale Steve Cone of Capital Caring Health, marking the organization's 50th year in 2027, shared that Capital Caring was the first hospice in the nation to care for terminally ill children and remains the largest children's hospice organization in the country. He highlighted the organization's volunteer-run "Elf Squad" and its robotic pet program, which he said transforms the daily experience of dementia patients roughly 95% of the time — moving them from confusion or agitation to calm and joy. Over five years, Capital Caring has distributed 5,000 of the robotic pets at no required cost. Sarah Malaby of Chesterbrook Residences, a senior living community built through a multi-congregation partnership to serve all income levels, described a long-running slate of intergenerational partnerships with local schools, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, internships, and holiday events. Her advice to attendees: keep opening doors, even when some events don't draw a crowd. "Anything you might have liked 10, 15, 20 years ago, you probably like now and will like another version of it in another 30 years," she said. From the Floor: Real Estate, Special Education, and What Comes Next Catherine Javier-Wong, owner of Isigen Montessori Care, introduced herself from the audience after registering the night before, describing how she applies Montessori practices across the full lifespan — connecting schools with assisted living communities. During an open Q&A, several attendees added their own intergenerational stories. A senior real estate specialist shared how converting a home's unfinished basement into a full intergenerational living suite — complete with kitchen and bath — helped a Centerville property sell for a million dollars, nearly double the original estimate, to a genuinely multigenerational family. A representative from Loudoun County Public Schools' special education advisory committee described an in-progress transition center for graduating students with disabilities, and asked local businesses to consider partnership opportunities for workplace readiness training. Looking Ahead Gurney closed the summit by asking attendees to carry the momentum back to their own organizations — and to think about outreach to local schools and preschools for next year's event. "Nobody's doing this stuff, folks," he said. "We're in kind of frontier town, so we'll make it up as we go along." Plans for a third annual summit are already underway. Presenter Contacts:
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