Skip to main content

National Eye Month Activities for Seniors

January is National Eye Month and as the Activities Director in an independent living retirement community, I  like to draw attention to it due to the fact that there are residents living in our community with eye issues.  Yes, we can recognize each month's health focus and that might come across as "not real fun activities," so pick and choose the ones that will work in your community and then make it great. 

For National Eye Month, there are a few different programs that will benefit your community and they are:

  • Invite a local area's eye doctor to come give a lecture to your residents about eye care/eye health
  • Ask an organization like The American Foundation for the Blind to provide a speaker who would come to the community and share the tools that can help low-vision residents with their daily living tasks. See the Resources for Activities Directors for some low vision game aids that will help your residents stay "in the game."
  • Provide a bus to a store that sells the items that will help the residents with poor vision.  Make sure to call ahead and tell the store that you will be coming so that they have plenty of staff available to help. Give the group enough time to be served and don't allow the group size to be to big. 
  • Ask your local area's eye doctor's if they have an eye screening van that can come to your community and provide the testing required for a healthy eye.
  • Highlight the special services that are available though your community's library or the local library for those with low-vision.
  • Check out the National Library Service Talking Books information that is available for all U.S. residents. You can pass this information along to those in need in your community.
  • And, as I am thinking about what else might be good to add, I was thinking....you can also scheduling a bus to a store that sells prescription eye wear. This might be a store that they already go to, like Walmart, but during the month of January, you might want to highlight that it has an optical department.
"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." Woodrow Wilson
Look Ahead & Schedule An Event!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3 Styles of Scavenger Hunts

Boy is it hot outside! If you are like me you may still be looking for indoor activities that are fun for your residents to do. This activity that I will share with you can be done for different levels of care in your retirement community. I encourage you to share it with the other activity professionals that work in those other areas within your own community. The activity is the Scavenge Hunt. This can be done in three different ways and I will describe them below: 1)       The Stay Seated Scavenger Hunt v   Ask audience to bring in items they think will be asked for. Encourage them to fill their purses, pockets, bags, etc. and bring it to the event v   Make a list of items that they could bring with them v   Include items that would be funny, that might have a story to go with them, or that people would be surprised someone would actually have. (Green Stamps anyone?) v   See the list I used v   Cut the list i...
2 comments
Read more

Puzzle Theme for Volunteer Appreciation

Volunteers are an essential piece of retirement communities! They can be found volunteering at the reception desk when you first walk in, running an activity for the entire community to attend, folding napkins for the dining room and even taking potential residents on tours of the community for the sales and marketing department. Resident volunteers may also be board or committee members of your community's resident board. It is hard to imagine a successful community without resident volunteers. As the activities director in my CCRC community, it is my responsibility to make sure there is a wonderful appreciation luncheon every year to thank our residents. This year we used a puzzle theme for the lunch. The idea came to us (me and my co-workers from our neighboring sister community) from the Positive Promotions catalog. Here are the highlights of the event that connected the pieces together for a successful and meaningful afternoon: In Advance 1) Took a photo of the entran...
Post a Comment
Read more

Super Bowl Party for Seniors

It is almost here! The 46th Super Bowl game will be held on Sunday, February 5 in Indinapolis. Each year, residents in my retirement community want to have a viewing party for the big game. I believe that it is a fun program to make an activity out of, but not something that I must do every year. Mostly, I don't have this each year because there are not to many ways to change it up, so I don't want to have it become boring. (This is where your ideas would be great to hear!!) This year, we are going to have a party and I'd like to share with you the plans for the evening. Residents are now signing up for the program which is set to start at 6:00 p.m.  This time is perfect in my community because we still serve dinner at noon on Sundays and the residents usually like to attend for the food, if for no other reason. (I do charge them a fee for the food.) We will have the game showing on our big screen tv in the auditorium and tables and chairs set up for the...
2 comments
Read more