They have many memories, but few opportunities for sharing them.

Some of the residents at the Melanie Manor senior citizen apartments on Sonora Drive complained to service coordinator Carolyn Canini of their plight. Charged with planning programs to help with the health and wellness of the residents, she thought: Let them write.

Canini issued a plea for help to the Ohio State University Creative Writing Project's director, Lee Martin, who in turn sent out an e-mail to all students in the program seeking volunteers.

Enter Jen Town, a third-year graduate student seeking her master of fine arts in creative writing who is originally from Erie, Pa.

"I just thought it sounded like a fun project," Town said.

She sought some other volunteers among her friends, less along the lines of "Is this something you would like to do?" and more in the manner of "This something you are going to do."

"I recruited my friends," Town recalled recently. "I told them, 'You are doing this.' "

And several other graduates decided to do so, at an initial session in early May and another one later in the month.

"It went really, really well," Town said of that first session as the second was about to be held. "Both the students and the residents seemed to really enjoy it."

Finding the right approach presented itself as an important issue right from the start, according to Town.

When looking at the half-dozen or so residents who signed on for the workshop, people in their 60s, 70s and even 80s, Town realized that looking back on a lifetime of memories for these people was going to mean another "War and Peace" or some new Tom Wolfe tome from each of them.

"There are just so many ways you can focus this," Town said.

But a cookbook, one combining favorite recipes, and the memories that accompany them, might just do the trick.

During the first workshop on May 1, Town said that many of the six students who signed on were all stressed out from exams and studies. They found the whole experience of being with the senior citizens a refreshing one, an opportunity to talk to and hear from folks they might not normally encounter.

It was a good experience for those on the other side of the generational equation, as well.

"I liked going to the last one; good exercise for the mind," commented Dave Waldo, a Melanie Manor resident the past seven years who is originally from Pittsburgh.

"And," he jokingly added, "I think I taught the students quite a bit."

"I've enjoyed it very much," said Midge Morgan, a native of Sedalia. "I'm not very good at art, but the students are very nice."

"At my age, it's all going to the doctors," joked Delphia McDonald, so spending time in the writing workshop provided a pleasant change of pace.

During the second gathering of "students" and their "teachers," McDonald was paired with Andrew Brogdon, a master's candidate originally from Tallahassee, Fla.

In coaching her during a writing exercise in which the residents had to offer their interpretations of a photograph showing a grandmotherly figure holding a toddler in her arms, Brogdon advised McDonald to project herself into the images in the photograph and come up with a story based on that.

"That's the value you bring as a writer," Brogdon said. "You have something that no one else has."

The eventual goal of the project, according to Canini, is to produce a community cookbook filled with memories and recipes that have special meaning for the residents.

kparks@thisweeknews.com