Red Deer Public Library is presenting The Time of Your Life, a program geared for seniors to learn about hobby options and for young people to learn about life after retirement.

“This project came as another opportunity to showcase the seniors that we have in the community, because very often when people think about seniors they think they should treat them like children,” said Tatiana Poliakevitch, community development librarian.

Along with having presentations to attend, the library also has a collection of books in the library that give ideas to people about what to do with their time and how to enjoy life. The collection can be accessed online as well as in the library catalogue under the title ‘Time of Your Life’ and will continue to grow as the program continues.

“With this group we undertook quite a lot of different projects including the web page for seniors and a collection of older classical movies,” said Poliakevitch.

The library has a senior advisory group that has worked very closely with this program to make sure that all of the events planned are interactive and informative.

“In March the program was about art lovers and we had an actor from Central Alberta Theatre come in so we did a theatre performance with the audience and it was hilarious.”

Each presentation is about two hours long and has a coffee and tea break in the middle. Like all library programs, it is free to attend as well.

Poliakevitch also added that they are always looking for suggestions for speakers whether they be interesting, engaging or extremely active seniors.

“We think the community recognizes seniors but they can also learn a lot of very interesting things about themselves and how to live life meaningfully no matter how old they are,” said Poliakevitch.

April’s focus is Nature Lovers and will have information about bird watching and how to get involved in animal rescue. There is a display at the Red Deer Public Library downtown branch where people can read about these things.

May 17 will be the ‘What’s New Out There?’ presentation at 6 p.m. at the Snell Auditorium.

“We document this program series on our web site so anyone who missed the previous programs can go and see who we had and see some of the presentations,” said Poliakevitch.

The Time of Your Life program has speakers lined up pretty well until the end of September and invites people of all ages to join and come and see what kinds of things seniors in the community are doing.

“There must be some other seniors who are feeling the same and would be happy to share [their experiences] with the others,” said Poliakevitch.

The library will also be offering a ‘living library’ during the Children’s Festival where people can sign out a person rather than a book.

“The idea is that you take out the person who has assigned a title to themselves and talk to them about what they might know.”

For more information visit rdpl.org/adult/the-time-of-your-life.

kpalardy@reddeerexpress.com