On September 10, 2006, Project C.A.R.E. teamed up with Bruster’s Ice Cream in Cleveland to host a community ice cream party celebrating Grandparents Day. All grandparents that accompanied a grandchild received a free cone.  Grandparents Day was the brainchild of Marian McQuade of Fayette County, W.Va., who hoped that such an observance might persuade grandchildren to tap the wisdom and heritage of their grandparents. The first presidential proclamation was issued in 1978, and one has been issued each year since — designating the first Sunday after Labor Day as National Grandparents Day. According to research conducted by Hallmark, approximately 3 million cards are given, nationwide, each year on Grandparents Day.

Interesting Statistics on Grandparents

How Many Grandparents? About 56 million grandparents live in the United States. (Source: Unpublished data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation)

• 5.7 million grandparents have grandchildren under 18 living with them. (Source: American FactFinder)
• 2.4 million grandparents are responsible for most of the basic needs (i.e., food, shelter, clothing) of one or more of the grandchildren who live with them. These grandparents represent about 42 percent of all grandparents whose grandchildren live with them. Of these caregivers, 1.5 million are grandmothers and 880,000 are grandfathers. (Source: American FactFinder)
• The number of children living with a grandparent is 6.1 million; these children comprise 8 percent of all children in the United States. Of these children, 4.1 million lived in a grandparent’s home and 1.9 million in a parent’s home. www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/families_households/006840.html
• Recent research by the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) reveals that more than 80 percent of the nation’s grandparents had visited or spoken with their grandchildren by phone in the past month. (Source: Hallmark research)