Two Moms Create Grandy to Nurture Grandparent/Grandchild Connection and Enrich the Family Dynamic
Digital Platform Connects Grandparents and Grandchildren Despite Busy Schedules Or Living Miles Apart
SAN FRANCISCO (November 19, 2019) – Dedicated mothers and female entrepreneurs Jennifer Rhodes and Rotem Skurnik today announced the launch of Grandy, a subscription service designed to enhance the natural bond between children and their grandparents while bringing joy to both generations.
For parents wanting to keep family bonds intact in the face of geographical distance and increasing work-life challenges, Grandy unique digital service provides an easy, safe and private platform that features engaging, structured and incentivized interactions intended specifically to enhance these special family relationships.
Jennifer Rhodes, CEO and founder of f Grandy, is a busy working mom who was in search of an easy way to keep her children and parents connected. “I wanted my kids to create and maintain meaningful relationships with their grandparents before the opportunity slipped away,” said Rhodes. “But I needed something easy for my mom to use, a digital platform that specialized in onboarding older adults, and that my kids were also motivated to use. And Grandy was born.”
Co-founder Rotem Skurnik had the same concerns. “My parents live over 500 miles from us,” Skurnik noted, “so it was difficult for my kids to stay connected with their grandparents on a regular basis. There’s an expectation that there are so many ways to solve this with technology, but there just wasn’t anything out there that my kids would use and that my parents would understand at the same time.”
f Grandy is a fun and easy-to-use solution that works seamlessly on computers, tablets and mobile devices, ensuring that family members can keep in touch anywhere and anytime. Grandy content, features and capabilities are designed for grandparents and children (ages five to 17), and offer a range of activities, game of the week, reminders and levels of engagement that can be curated to the individual needs and interests of each user.
The key functions include sending messages with photos or videos, scheduling video dates with grandparents, playing interactive weekly games together such as card games, jigsaw puzzles and word puzzles, and conducting storytelling interviews with grandparents that feature engaging topics and questions that can also be retrieved in the archived files. All Grandy functions are reinforced with reminders or “nudges” along the way to help kids build healthy habit structures.
Research shows that most grandparents and grandchildren are not using existing digital platforms to communicate, even though nearly all kids in today’s world prefer to use digital platforms to connect. Grandy has been designed specifically to overcome this disconnect and utilize technology to close the circle between a family’s older and younger generations.
According to Grandy Senior Connectivity Study conducted through Stanford University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), having meaningful and consistent interactions with grandchildren is a vital factor in lowering loneliness and positively impacting overall health, happiness and well-being of grandparents. Building and maintaining the special relationship that children have with their grandparents has also shown to be significant in developing family legacy, wisdom and empathy in children. Grandy encourages young people to engage in positive and fun interactions with their grandparents while giving seniors the opportunity to have a more powerful voice and influence in their grandchildren’s lives.
Grandy encourages interaction by letting kids collect entertaining badges once the “Love Tank” feature on the platform is filled by consistently using the platform to connect and engage with their grandparents. Kids can earn badges and then receive customizable gifts from their parents such as fun outings, sweet treats, movie nights, and more.
Grandy acts as a repository of memories, history and intergenerational wisdom shared among family members. Rather than providing a platform for quick chats and messages captured in short clips and evanescent images, Grandy represents spots of time that are built to last and can be revisited and shared with others. Parents can see all communication and activity, and messages can be saved and downloaded to capture fleeting moments and memorable experiences for all time. Grandy is a private subscription service that protects users’ information and does not engage in data or ad sharing.
About Grandy
Founded in San Francisco in 2019 by entrepreneur mothers Jennifer Rhodes and Rotem Skurnik, Grandy is a subscription service designed to build and enhance relationships between children and their grandparents.
For parents wanting to keep family bonds intact in the face of geographical distance and increasing work-life demands, Grandy is a solution that works seamlessly on computers, tablets and mobile devices to ensure that family members can keep in touch anywhere and anytime.
Grandy provides an easy, safe and private platform that features engaging, structured and incentivized interactions intended specifically to enhance these special family relationships.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
