Thompson Park Activity Center Part 2: Tech Help Where ‘Kindness Prevails’

Thanks to Block Portrait Studios for their support.

This is part two of our three-part series on the Thompson Park Activity Center.

The Thompson Park Activity Center (TPAC) offers tech help for older adults, but it’s not the usual experts dispensing authoritative advice. The Computer Center is “seniors helping seniors,” with older adult volunteers helping other older adults.

“It’s easier when it’s a kindred spirit,” said Computer Center volunteer Paul Brown of Inver Grove Heights. “We pass no judgment.” (Though Brown takes issue with the ‘seniors’ label, noting that he’s retired but doesn’t consider himself a ‘senior.’)

When & where: The Computer Center is available every Monday morning from 9 to noon at TPAC (roughly following the school calendar for days off). A group of five volunteers makes it happen. 

Impact: “Kindness prevails,” said Computer Center volunteer Mary Lou Logsdon of West St. Paul. “There’s often an emotional attachment. We’ve had a couple women come in and say their husbands died and they didn’t know what to do, they didn’t have passwords. It’s not unusual to have some tears.”

• During our interview, a woman came in with a laptop belonging to her brother who had recently died. She needed help and choked up several times.

No Judgment

“I think we do a very good job of being very non-judgmental and very supportive and helping them through their simple problems,” said Brown.

For many older adults, getting tech help without judgment can be a challenge.

“In many cases, when I go to my kids, they’re rolling their eyes at me and they won’t help me,” said Brown. “Grandkids are way too fast. My mom doesn’t like getting help from me because she gets all stressed out. It’s just very different here.”

How the Computer Center Works

Instead of a strict, 10-minute slot at the Genius Bar, the Computer Center will work with people, help them figure it out, and take as much time as they need. It’s a collaborative process, often giving people a chance to practice new skills instead of just fixing it for them.

• Empowering: “One of the things we do is to help show people how you can do your own research,” Logsdon said. “I’ll say, ‘Well, let’s just sit down and ask Google that question,’ and then we get the answer together.”
• Team effort: “We work as a team,” Logsdon said. “If one of us is confused about what we might do, then we ask whoever else is here and we solve it together.”
• Escalation: “If it’s the simplest thing in the world, great. If it’s more complicated, we’ll do our best to figure it out,” said Brown. “But if not, you might need to go to the Geek Squad or take it to the next level.”

Common problems: The concerns vary, but common issues include dealing with photos, how to text, ringtones, managing passwords, and more.

Busy season: “After Christmas we seem to have quite a bit of an influx,” said Brown. “You can tell ‘my kids bought me this new phone and I need help.’”

Who Is Helping?

The tech volunteers come from all walks of life and aren’t necessarily tech pros.

• “When I retired and then told my former coworkers I was doing tech support, I couldn’t get them to stop laughing,” Brown said. “Because I wasn’t the tech guy at work.”
• “What you need is experience, not expertise, to be one of us,” said Logsdon, who spent her career working on mainframe computers, a long way from personal computing.

The Tech Connection

Ultimately, the Computer Center sees a high success rate and a lot of repeat customers. 

“It’s 50% tech support at best,” said Brown. “It’s helping them through a problem and empathizing and understanding and listening and helping them figure it out.”

In the end, the Computer Center is about connection. Many of those repeat customers are looking to solve problems and build their skills, but they also want social interaction.

“Especially in this era of still so much isolation and not doing things in person, I think this in-personness is really important,” said Logsdon.

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