About once a month, people over 55 bring their laptops, smartphones and other digital devices to the Island YMCA to take some tips from the Island’s resident technology experts: kids.

On a recent afternoon, students from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School were trickling into Alex’s Place, the teen center at the YMCA, where a large common area with tables, computers and a kitchen was bathed in light from floor-to-ceiling windows.

Tony Lombardi, director of the teen center, along with Ray Whitaker, who had been the YMCA’s personal trainer, created the Elder Tech program about three years ago as a free service to older people on the Island and to help bridge the generational gap.

Mr. Whitaker is now elder fitness and services coordinator, a position that was created last year. The Elder Tech program is one of several at the YMCA that cater to the Island’s rapidly growing senior population.

“To date we’ve been able to do it just about every month,” Mr. Lombardi said. “And it’s become extremely popular. And with Ray’s new outreach into the elder community, which has grown tremendously, the interest is even bigger.”

During the Elder Tech fairs at Alex’s Place, teens and elders meet one-on-one to address technology questions. Often the process is a mutual learning experience.

“Sometimes they are simple questions, like how to use Gmail, and we can easily teach them how to do it,” said Jared Livingston, a high school junior who helped shape the program when it started. “But sometimes they have questions that we don’t know either. And so it’s actually a learning experience for both of us. We are able to figure it out together.”

Funding from Comcast helps support the teen center and Elder Tech program. When the center first opened, the company supplied funding for all the equipment, including computers, a recording studio and video game systems. It also sponsored Digital Connectors, a year-long IT training program for teens that required 56 hours of community service. Mr. Lombardi and Mr. Whitaker quickly saw an opportunity.

“The idea of taking this concept and providing it to the elders was a great fit for us,” Mr. Lombardi said. “And people are always asking out there in the café, ‘Ahhh! Help me with this phone!’ And we looked at each other like, all right, maybe we’ll do that and see what comes of it.”

Mr. Livingston was active in the program from the beginning. “He set the bar high, because he was so involved in so many ways,” Mr. Whitaker said. “He really took everything into consideration.” And the teens now make the program what it is, he said. “Without them it doesn’t exist.”

During the Martin Luther King Jr. day membership event held by the Island NAACP last month, Mr. Livingston and Mr. Lombardi, along with high school junior Olivia Jacobs, were honored for their service to the community. The Island NAACP is working to grow its youth membership, and to reestablish an Island youth chapter.

“One of our big dilemmas out here that we are getting our head around now is the fact that our elder population is increasing dramatically and our younger population is decreasing dramatically,” Mr. Lombardi said. “There isn’t a lot of opportunity for young people to stay on the Island and put down roots and make an affordable wage and find affordable housing, so we tend to lose them.”

The Elder Tech program is one of many at the YMCA that cater to the senior population. In addition to leading exercise classes and workshops, Mr. Whitaker is working to develop a video game program for elders that will help with their coordination, and will be taught by Island teens. The Thursday Club, begun in January, will allow people with early and advanced memory loss issues to interact with each other and play games to improve their memory.

Teen participation in the Elder Tech fairs was required at first, but relationships soon formed and many teens now continue to take part on their own. Most of the elders who attend the fairs return more than once and many request to work with the same students again.

Older people have been grateful for a chance to connect with the younger generation, Mr. Lombardi said. “The perception of this generation is not a positive one in some people’s eyes, so it was a really great opportunity for us to disprove that about our kids.” He added: “You can learn a lot from just sitting with someone who has 60 years of wisdom under their belt.”

Mr. Livingston agreed that the greatest reward has been connecting with older people who he otherwise might not encounter. “You get to learn so much from people,” he said.

Mr. Lombardi noted that the term “elder” is different from “elderly” and “old.” “Elders in our mind are people that have vast life experience, and they happen to be older,” he said. “And because they have vast life experience it’s important to connect them with people who are coming along behind them. They are the wisdom keepers of the community.”

Of the approximately 1,200 young members of the Island YMCA, about 500 take part in at least one program. The Island YMCA as a whole has the highest membership rate of any community in the country, with almost 5,000 members, or 25 per cent of the Island’s year-round population.

It relies largely on posters, emails and word of mouth to promote the elder programs, but having a broad membership also helps. “It’s a really big brushstroke that this one facility provides to the community,” Mr. Lombardi said. “That’s why all this can happen.”