Warm, summery days are meant for enjoyment, and that’s what happens at Angel Avenue at Sidney Health Center Extended Care. Whenever friends and family have anything to celebrate – there’s a party.

Whenever the growing season comes around for blooming flowers, fruits and vegetables – such as cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, butternut squash, ornamental gourds, grapes and cantaloupe – Extended Care staff, residents and their families take part in beautifying the courtyard.

While gardening is a wonderful activity to enhance brain function, mentally or physically, it also brings back great memories for many of the residents and reminds them of a place of comfort from long, lost years. The time spent together and the visiting that occurs when working the gardens, picking off wilted blooms and watering the plants creates memories of pleasant times. Involving the residents in every day tasks helps to make everyone feel successful with their surroundings.

Engaging people in therapeutic activities enhances independence for everyone involved. All of the produce that comes from the Angel Avenue garden is shared with all of Extended Care.

Mary Fink, activities aide/CNA in Angel Avenue, helps to guide residents in the care of garden tasks from planting to picking the produce. At harvest time, staff and residents work together in making jelly. “We measure it out, pour it into the jars, and share it with all the residents,” Fink said. “Each table in the dining room will have at least one jar of jelly made from the staff, volunteers and residents from the grapes in Angel Avenue’s courtyard.”

Residents at Extended Care have a choice to partake in all kinds of activities. “Our calendar is full. We have a Red Hats Society (no men allowed), men’s group (no women allowed), a cooking group, sing-a-longs, beauty shop, exercises, Sidney News (where we always read Homespun), games, puzzles, special parties, church and I can’t forget BINGO,” Kris Radke, activities director, said. 

Every month, each neighborhood including Just South, Happy Trails, Country Road and Memory Lane take a turn hosting a special event for the residents. In September, Just South and Happy Trails will be hosting a barn dance. Residents and family will get to enjoy an old-fashioned barn dance with music, food and dancing. “I think this is just one of the ways our staff shows they care for the residents and their families,” Radke said. “It takes a lot of people, more then just my activity staff, to put on a big event like this. We have many staff members from every department that come in to help out.”

Radke is always inspired by the staff and feels blessed to be a part of Extended Care. Sometimes, it is a difficult transition for new residents and family to come to a “nursing home,” but Radke says, “What we have here is so much more. Extended Care staff and residents begin a bond that lasts more then just a shift. I truly believe this and have seen it so many times.”

For most of the residents, remembering the past is so much easier. Activity programs are based on the past. What a person did for a living, what their hobbies were, what was meaningful to them – all are things that bring joy and excitement to their lives. “If I can focus on meaning in their life, I can make the activity be more then just passing time,” Radke said.

Activities that incorporate memories of the past help provide just what each resident needs, a gentle whisk back to yesterday.

homespun@sidneyherald.com