Sixteen-year old Courtney Irons (center) unveils her service project called GAMES, Golden Age Mobile Entertainment Services, at the GVHP Help Fair. Her mother Caren Irons (left) and Dale Sells, caregiver respite coordinator for Noyes Hospital, help her share word of the service at the fair. Photo by Sally Santora.

GENESEO, NY — Courtney Irons, 16 years old and a junior at Geneseo High School, has accomplished more in her young life than most people do in a lifetime.

Her most recent endeavor is getting a lot of notice. GAMES, the acronym for Golden Age Mobile Entertainment Services, is a program Irons developed to benefit homebound senior citizens.

It’s a collection of CDs, books on tape and CD and DVDs of older shows and movies that older people find enjoyable and can identify with.

Irons says the idea came to her as a result of her experiences with her grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and lived with her family until her passing in 2004.

Irons and her grandmother enjoyed watching old movies together. She thought it would benefit other dementia patients and their families to enjoy this kind of entertainment together and so her idea for GAMES was born.

To assist with her goal of helping isolated senior citizens, Irons partnered with Noyes Memorial Hospital and Office of the Aging to get GAMES off the ground. She’s compiled a list of volunteers who help deliver the movies to senior citizens.

“She always found time to help with her grandmother's care and would often sit with her helping to entertain her with a movie from the past; one that grandma would find some joy in viewing and recognizing,” commented Dale Sells, caregiver respite coordinator for Noyes Memorial Hospital.

Irons is using her GAMES project toward earning the Girl Scout Gold Award. She’s been involved with scouting since the third grade and has demonstrated her compassion for others long before the GAMES project.

She is an ambassador for Our Cabana in Mexico after she visited the country to learn about the culture and needs of the people living there. Her girl scout troop has continued Irons’ commitment to serving the needs of the people there by making blankets and sending them to Mexico.

For 11 years Irons has been an altar server at ST. Michael’s Church in Geneseo. She also volunteers at the church’s vacation bible school and in the Sunday nursery. She spent 10 days with a church group in New Orleans on a Hurricane Katrina rebuild project.

Irons is also concerned about environmental issues and last year was selected to travel to Virginia to study the plight of the horseshoe crab through a program called Earth Wise. She will participate again this year by studying the environment of Zion National Park in Utah.

Her list of service involvements continues with volunteering at Teresa House, a hospice home in Geneseo and is an honorary member of the Geneseo Kiwanis club for attending the meetings as a community outreach participant.

“She’s always been a helper,” says her mother, Caren Irons.

See complete story in our Jan. 28 print edition.