Duane VIA
Activities Coordinator
This year for our residents’ Halloween party the staff and some of the residents dressed up.
We even had a surprise for them: staff members Billy Parsons and Francine Jones dressed up as Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. They performed “Jackson” and “You are my Sunshine.” The residents loved seeing Johnny and June and they will make another appearance later in the year.
Our staff members on first floor dressed up as “Care Bears” and the staff on West Wing dressed up as “cowgirls and cowboys.” Therapy department staff members dressed up as super heroes. We had a costumes contest for staff members to participate in, and residents picked the winners. First place was won by Kimmy Sanchez, in second place was Christy Hill, and third place went to Brandy Lewis. Prizes were awarded to each winner.
Later on, the residents got to visit with the area children as they came in to “trick or treat.” Each year, residents love having the children in their costumes come in to visit. Some of them will tell the children that they have scared them with their costumes. When babies come in, the residents go on and on about how cute they are in their costumes.
Many times staff members bring in their own children to visit and meet with the residents, because most of the residents know that the staff members have children and they love talking about them. This year, we estimate that we had around 200 “trick or treaters.” We hank staff members who donated candy for this event.
We are planning on putting up our Christmas trees on Thanksgiving Day. Each year we put up eight trees throughout the center. This is a lot of hard work but the residents enjoy helping us on where to place ornaments. We talk about Christmases past and the fun they had when they were children decorating their Christmas trees.
Many of the residents remember stringing popcorn, making homemade ornaments, and going out to cut down their tree. We get to hear many wonderful stories about when Christmas gifts were homemade or it was something you really needed to survive the next year.
Residents like also tell you about what they had in their stockings, It wasn’t small gifts, but things they could eat and it would be treats, because this would be the only time of the year that most of them would get candy.
Christmas is always a time to be closer to family—it’s no different than years past or in the future. Our residents always look forward to the holiday season because they get to see family members who live out of state or out of town. The holidays always bring families closer to one another.
We are working on our December calendar. If you or your group would like to entertain the residents during the holidays, please call Dee Dee Via at (276)-694-7161, extension 1804. We would love to put you on our calendar.
