This story aired in the January 26, 2026 episode of Crosscurrents.
Friendship is an important part of life, and of growing up. But our friends don’t always end up being the same age as us… or even of the same generation.
For the last eight years, 19-year-old Kate Quach has been volunteering at a senior center in San Francisco. In that time, Kate has made a lot of friends among the elderly residents living there. And she’s captured their stories in two self-published poetry collections.
Now she’s inspiring kids younger than her to do the same.
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Story Transcript
Sound of a senior named Klaus welcoming Kate back to the senior home
REPORTER: When Kate Quach visits the Ivy senior home in the Sunset, she can barely get in through the door before one of the residents stops to say hello.
Sound of Kate and Klaus saying bye to each other
REPORTER: Kate started volunteering at the senior home when she was just eleven — she’s nineteen now. The residents here have watched her grow up.
Sound of Kate showing a senior named Beth pictures of her dog
REPORTER: I follow her as she talks to Klaus about sailing. And shows Beth pictures of her dog, Sugar. And asks Victoria how her painting is coming along.
KATE QUACH: This is another person's family and I want to care for them just like how I would for mine.
REPORTER: Her own family is remarkably close. It was her grandparents and their stories about escaping the Vietnam War that made her so interested in the elders around her.
And it was actually her two older brothers, Jack and Tom, who started volunteering at the senior home first and inspired her to join them.
Sound of Kate asking a senior named Victoria about her artwork
REPORTER: In the past eight years, she’s collected hundreds of stories about her elderly friends.
KATE QUACH: Whenever I visit, I write down little quotes or phrases that the elders share with me about their lives so that I can remember them when I see them next.
REPORTER: As Kate got older, she discovered her interest in creative writing. When she read her notes about the seniors, she saw poetry.
KATE QUACH (reciting her poem): A dark coffee for Doug, fill it halfway in his chipped mug, mind this morning sip that dribbles into his white beard…
KATE QUACH: These notes in a way form themselves into pieces of poetry. All I had to do was just connect the dots together, and flesh it out and create a page just for them.
KATE QUACH (reciting her poem): My song crescendoes, scoot out a chair for Sylvie, before settling down a plate of eggs, sunny side up…
REPORTER: Her poems capture the beauty she sees in each resident’s life, which becomes all the more meaningful when her friends begin to forget who they are.
Sound of elevator going down to memory care
REPORTER: Kate chooses to spend a lot of her time in memory care. This is a separate part of the senior home where residents with dementia get specialized care and supervision.
Sound of a staff member letting Kate into memory care
Sound of Kate greeting memory care residents in the dining room
REPORTER: When we enter memory care, I suddenly feel confronted by the harsh realities of aging. I’m taken back to when I was younger, and my grandmother could no longer remember who I was. I feel sad here, but Kate sees it differently.
KATE QUACH: I'm, like, energized and willing to put in the extra effort to have a conversation that can last however long with them. Even if we go over the same things again, I want to hear from them.
Sound of Kate taking to a senior named Iris about music
KATE QUACH: Whenever they do get to share something like a little childhood memory of driving by the beach or going to the opera, I hold onto that. It's something small, but I hold onto it because that means that they remember. They remember all these parts that made them so happy.
Sound of Kate and the memory care residents singing “Together”
KATE QUACH: They're still holding onto who they are and are incredibly generous to share that with me.
REPORTER: The words “memory” and “care” come up for me over and over as I shadow Kate. How she cares about the memories the residents share with her while they’re living. How she becomes the caretaker of their memory when they’re gone.
She shows me where her friend, Lorraine, used to sit.
KATE QUACH: One of the elders, actually too, I really miss, Lorraine. She was always here or there…
REPORTER: Lorraine passed away last year. Kate wrote a poem about her called “Prom.”
KATE QUACH (reciting her poem): The skirt that floats every time I spin, cherry red lipstick will pucker on my pout, eyelashes full and fluffy, I’ll wrap rollers on my hair until the ends hug the nape of my neck…
REPORTER: When she was seventeen, Kate turned her poetry into two self-published books. They’re called A Seat in the Sunlight and Moonlit Seats Await.
KATE QUACH: One thing I wanted to do was, with these poems, act on their potential to create a new kind of history book. One that was built by living people, memories, and stories that often don't get shown in our day-to-day classrooms.
REPORTER: Kate started to wonder about all the seniors she would never get to meet, and how their stories could be included in what we think of as history.
KATE QUACH: How can I bring more people into this and to create a community out of this?
REPORTER: She had an idea. What if she could teach others to do what she did? This idea evolved into her program called Golden Keepers.
Sound of Kate entering the workshop at the library
REPORTER: For the past three years, she’s partnered with San Francisco libraries to hold workshops, where she trains kids to capture the stories around them.
We’re at the West Portal Library. Twenty elementary school students sit cross-legged on the carpet.
KATE QUACH: I'm so excited to invite you all into the Golden Keepers community today.
REPORTER: Kate begins by sharing her story of volunteering and reads aloud some of the poems from her books.
KATE QUACH: So I'm wondering, did, have any of you heard of the Japanese American incarceration or anything related to that?
KATE QUACH (reciting her poem): I'm as tall as the luggage and too young to know where we are going. We are baggage pinned to a number and herded onto a train…
REPORTER: Then comes the part of the workshop that the kids are most excited about, journal making.
Sound of the kids grabbing art supplies and laughing
REPORTER: These journals are where Kate tells them they can capture the memories of their loved ones, just like she did with her poetry books.
Sound of Kate giving the kids instructions
REPORTER: Kate walks around, helping the kids bind their colorful paper journals with hole punchers and yarn.
KATE QUACH: As I'm helping you with the yarn, I want to know, what's a question that you can ask your parents when you come home?
REPORTER: Once their journals are bound, the kids get to work coloring and writing all over them. Like Vivienne Koster.
VIVIENNE KOSTER: I chose this, like, green dotted paper because it kind of reminds me of the shirt that my dad wears. It's really, like, light and vibrant.
MAX BRADLEY: I'm gonna put in things about my family.
REPORTER: Max Bradley’s excited to see his grandparents. They’re visiting from Ireland.
MAX BRADLEY: I'm gonna ask them if we could go do something fun. Like playing tag, something like, and seeing stuff around San Francisco.
REPORTER: At the end of the workshop, the kids earn a sticker, making them official Golden Keepers. Elisha Zhang tells Kate what she’s going to put in her journal.
KATE QUACH: Your family's history! Do you know anything about your family's history right now?
ELISHA ZHANG: I know where they were born.
KATE QUACH: Mmm, where they were born… Where were they born?
ELISHA ZHANG: Guangzhou.
KATE QUACH: Oh! So have you ever visited Guangzhou before?
ELISHA ZHANG: No.
KATE QUACH: So they can tell you about what their childhood was like there, right? That could be really awesome! Here, let me put this sticker on the back for you. I'm so excited, Elisha, for what's in store for you.
Sound of the kids clapping and saying thank you to Kate
REPORTER: Kate just started her freshman year at Stanford. She plans to expand Golden Keepers to other libraries beyond San Francisco, starting with her newly adopted college town of Palo Alto. It’s exciting.
KATE QUACH: Knowing that our elders, you know, as generations go on, our elders are still being listened to and cared for. And same with the youth, that they are learning something beyond the classroom about life, about stories, about relationships.
REPORTER: What I’ve learned from Kate is how we can witness each other, how we can care for each other’s memory, and the tremendous heart this all takes.
I feel less afraid of forgetting, knowing that someday, someone much younger than me, someone like a Golden Keeper, might hold onto my memory with such care. I feel grateful just imagining it.
