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Every two weeks, 12 immigrants, some in wheelchairs, all in frail health, board a van from the Ruth Ann Rosenberg Adult Day Health Center in San Francisco's Richmond District. They go to the School of the Arts at San Francisco State University to help high-schoolers learn Russian.

For the mostly Jewish elders, who are receiving assistance from the Jewish community, the program provides a chance to give back.

"These two populations can be resources for each other." said Jeff Chapline, managing director of the Consortium for Elders & Youth in the Arts, which is piloting the Russian arts and elders program.

Both CEYA and the day center are under the aegis of the Goldman Institute On Aging.

"Youth are able-bodied and curious. Elders are less able-bodied but they have a great deal of history knowledge and skills that they can offer these students," Chapline said.

Though the program wasn't set up specifically as a tzedakah project, that is the essence of what these elders are doing, said Carol Allen, director of professional and community education at the Goldman Institute. "These frail people are extending themselves to help others."

Russian instructor Vera Eby and artist Andrey Anisimov worked together, using art as a focus for the language program. Seniors and teens learned about painted wooden eggs, a traditional Russian art form, and then painted their own.

"Initially, time seemed to go very slowly. There would be hesitations, quiet times," Eby said. "After the first couple of meetings things started to go very fast. Things weren't quiet anymore. When it came time to clean up I would have to repeat, `It's time to clean up,' and you would hear some groans."

And whether they're painting or cleaning up, the teens speak in Russian to the elders, who know little English.

The Russian language and arts program started as an idea of Marth Becktell, the director of service learning in the arts for the San Francisco Unified School District.

"It's an important way to get elders involved in our community," she said. "We need them.

"It's an incredible move toward inter-generational, intercultural communication. It's a splendid model of what can happen. Here was an idea and we had a place to take it because of Jeff Chapline and the staff at CEYA."

For Riva Rutshteyn, 85, a dressmaker who emigrated from Moscow in 1992, the program offered not only an opportunity to paint but a chance to talk to American youth.

"I never painted anything in my life," she said, with the help of translator Mila Gornitskya. "I was frustrated. How am I going to paint a wooden egg? I saw the results and I became very satisfied."

Rutshteyn's egg, decorated with a pretty floral design, is on display with the other eggs at the Ruth Ann Rosenberg Adult Day Health Center. The exhibit will continue through March.

Participating in the Russian arts and language program wasn't easy for Rutshteyn, who walks with a cane, but seeing the teens learning Russian was exciting for her.

"It's very important to be close to the children. This is the only program where we go to the children."

With obvious pride, Faina Kushnir, 70, shows the eggs painted by her student partners, Ben Abbot and Jennifer Tinonga.

The students "are very supportive, helping us to get out of the bus," says Kushnir, who uses a wheelchair. "I think of my partners like my children."

The class' spring project will be to write children's stories in Russian. A similar program is being implemented in the School of the Arts' Spanish class.

Both students and seniors were opened by the experience, Eby said.

"The seniors had heard about how American kids tend to be hooligansie. These kids growing up were still hearing about the `evil empire.'"

She compares the Russian arts and language program to the experience of travel.

"You get to see how similar we all are instead of how different."