Forum Messages

I have a resident who has lived in our community for 10 years. I just found out that her anniversary date is at the end of the week and my Administrator wants me to honor her like yesterday.  I want to write an article about her in our next newsletter, but that's not enough for our administrator. I have a ton of stuff going on this week and don't really have the time to pull together a party for her or something, and I can't think of anything else to do, probably because i'm in panic mode. Any ideas for a situation like this?

Hi,  I would do about what the other person said to do, I just wanted to say you might want to look into other residents and how long they have been there.  At my facility it is not uncommon for residents to be here for 20 years (we are a continueing care facility so that does make a difference).  We just lost a very special lady who actually moved in and was the first activites director for our facility about 35 years ago.  We actually still have some of her old calendars, can you believe they were hand typed and she drew on them to give them color!  She and I would sit around and talk about how she used to run programs!

The reason Im saying this is that you might have other residents that have been there for some time and you do not want to hurt their feelings.  Its a good idea but maybe in a month also have a party for people who have been there for atleast 5 years or something like that!

Do you have a common area, lobby perhaps. Maybe you could get photos you have of her(from previous events) and her family, some interesting artifacts from her room (scrapbooks, photos as a young girl wedding albums, knick-knacks, write a brief bio, school, achievements...etc etc. (frame this) and make a display. This should not take too long to put together. Display it for a week. At the " Grand Opening" of the display serve sparkling cider in plastic champagne glasses, fruit and cheese and crackers for staff and Residents.