There is a moment Luc Gutmann keeps coming back to. He is sitting at a table at Sunrise Senior Living in Danville, cards spread out between him and a group of seniors, and no one wants to leave. The game is Memory—fitting, given where they are—and the seniors are asking for just one more round. Again. And again.
“Seeing that they don’t want us to leave,” Luc says simply, “that tells me everything.” Luc is 17 years old. He has lived in Blackhawk since he was three. And in the fall of 2025, he did something that most teenagers never think to do — he founded a nonprofit organization dedicated to bridging the gap between teens and seniors, one card game at a time. He called it Teens2Seniors. And what started as a deeply personal mission to spend more time with his grandmother is quietly becoming something much bigger.
A Story That Starts With GiGi
To understand Teens2Seniors, you have to understand GiGi. GiGi is Luc’s grandmother, and she was diagnosed with dementia. For years, Luc had been making regular visits to spend time with her—not because anyone asked him to, but because he wanted to. When his grandfather, PaPa Gutmann, passed away in January 2025, the family made the decision to move GiGi from Santa Barbara to Blackhawk to be close to family. She stayed with the Gutmanns for the first week and then moved into Sunrise Senior Living’s memory care unit. “I was sad to see her leave,” Luc recalls. “But I understood she needed more care. I just wanted to find a way to keep spending time with her.”
During his frequent visits to Sunrise, Luc noticed something that stayed with him. In the hallways and common rooms, he saw seniors who looked lonely. Faces that lit up when someone walked through the door and dimmed again when they left. He also noticed the volunteer sign-up sheets posted in the lobby.
The idea was simple, the way the best ideas always are. He was already there. His friends cared. Why not make it official? “When we come to visit, their eyes brighten. They almost find teens as entertainment. And honestly—we feel the same way about them.”
Building Something Real
Luc didn’t have to look far for his founding team. His friends Valentina and Massimo Deneroff had their own grandmother living with dementia, and they understood immediately why this mattered. Lexie Lowe and Ari Burjis joined because, as Luc puts it, “they just loved the idea.” Mila Gutmann and Olivia Liesch rounded out the group. Seven teenagers, most of them Blackhawk residents, united by something simple and profound: the belief that showing up matters. Today, Teens2Seniors visits Sunrise once a month as a group. Sunrise sets up tables in the main room; the seniors gather, and the teens run two or three tables of card games—typically Memory, a game that is both fun and gently therapeutic for residents with cognitive challenges. The visits run one to three hours depending on how many teens are available, and Teens2Seniors is listed in the facility’s daily activities pamphlet so the seniors know to expect them. Luc himself goes every single week, personally, to see GiGi. The moments he describes from those visits are equal parts heartwarming and quietly profound. There is GiGi, who asks Luc why he is there every single time he arrives—but the moment the games begin, she is smiling, proud, and telling everyone around the table that this is her grandson. There is James, a wildly competitive gentleman who gets genuinely grumpy when he loses — “He reminds me of myself,” Luc laughs — and who probably does not remember Luc between visits but plays every round like the championship is on the line. There was the time a senior wanted to dance with Massimo after the game ended. And the time another senior stormed off pouting after losing to one of the ladies at his table. “They behave no differently than teens,” Luc says, with a grin that suggests this surprised him more than he expected. “We all want to win while having fun.” “Teens make the seniors feel youthful again. And the seniors make the teens feel grateful. At the end of the day, we realize we are all the same.”
What the Seniors Are Teaching the Teens
Ask Luc what this experience has changed in him, and he answers without hesitation: patience. “Most of these seniors have memory issues and will ask things over and over,” he says. “Watching them get frustrated can be heartbreaking. But I also see the progression of human life. It makes me think about what it will be like when my parents get older. When I get older.” For a 16-year-old, that is a remarkable thing to sit with—and it speaks to something deeper about what Teens2Seniors is really doing. Yes, it brings joy to seniors who spend too many hours alone. Yes, it gives teenagers a meaningful, concrete way to give back to their community. But it also does something rarer and harder to manufacture: it builds empathy across generations in a way that changes both sides. “You realize that no matter what age, we all crave relationships,” Luc says. “Hanging out and playing games is so simple, yet so gratifying.”
His classmates have noticed too. When he tells them about Teens2Seniors, they want to know when the next visit is so they can come along.
What Comes Next
Luc has a vision for where Teens2Seniors goes from here, and it is ambitious. He wants to start local, grow regionally, and eventually take the model national. He envisions a booking platform where senior homes can list their events and teen volunteers can simply log in and sign up—removing the manual email coordination that currently holds things together with string and good intentions. An app. A real infrastructure. “We will need to raise money for that,” he acknowledges practically. “To build out the website platform and the app.” But the goal is clear, and the foundation is real. For now, though, the most important thing is the thing that has always been the most important thing: showing up. Sitting down at the table. Dealing the cards. Watching GiGi smile. “Find something personal,” Luc says, when asked what he would tell other Blackhawk teens thinking about starting something of their own. “Something you are passionate about. For me, it’s my grandma. She is someone I cherish, and the time I spend with her is invaluable.”
By Megan Scott, Resident since 2010
Photos provided by the Gutman Family