Recharging Retirees in Retirement Communities

Old Hollywood! What a wonderful period in history to celebrate with independent living residents in a CCRC retirement community. I just held this theme party this week, and I must say that it was a smash hit! It really was not hard at all to create, and the overwhelming results were terrific. Here is what I did. I went to my storage closet and started digging around. I ended up in one of my New Year's Eve boxes that I had marked "black and gold." I pulled out all the black stars that I could find, some black material, tooling that had gold stars on it, a few black sequenced hats, and some other stuff that I did not end up using. In another box that I had used for a movie night, I found paper items including a gold Oscar cut-out, some theater lights cut-outs , a mural of the red carpet, and other theater related items . Online, I found some cool piñatas of a clap-board and an old movie projector. And lastly, I always like to keep silk flowers on-hand to use, so...

The Olympics! They are the hot topic in my retirement community as I am sure they are in yours. My attendance for programs has fallen a bit and I'm sure it is because of this special event.  I'm sure that some of you had a gathering of some sort to watch the Opening Ceremonies and I would love to hear your comments on what you did and how it went. One of my "sister-communities" did something that I thought was pretty special. They had the opening ceremonies viewing party, and followed it up with a two-week long special dining program. They decorated the main dining room, using hula-hoops as the Olympic rings as part of the decorations, and then made a hand-out to give out the first night of the program. The hand out gave interested facts about the Olympics and also explained the two-week program. Basically, the culinary staff committed to make a special dish from a different country each evening and add it to the menu. Next to the item, it will have a small pic...