Transcription:
Enriching the Lives of Residents at Hancock Village

Elaine Printy (Guest): Well, thank you so much for having me. And yes, I can tell you all about it. So, Hancock Village is a place of worry free living. The two things that I love about it is that we're a community and that we like to thrive together. We let you be you. Each one of our residents brings with them, their own certain spice and they all have different gifts.

So we, we love it when we can let our residents pursue their hobbies and just to boil it down, it's just a place of joy and community. So, we have 24 hour nursing available. We also have memory care and that's a home-like environment and we all eat together around a big table. I love our staff. Part of the reason I started working here, was because I noticed that the staff always just were having fun and just so kind.

And they just, they had so much fun with the residents. And so I started out as a resident care specialist there. And so it's just the memory care is a warm home family environment and it's safe for our residents and our Hancock Village is more assisted living. And so we just, we just help you pursue the life that you want to pursue.

And so that's, that's really fun. And I just, I love working with our residents. They're all so funny. And each one is unique in their own way and they bring something to our community.

Elaine: Okay. So this is kind of the fun part as a Wellness Coordinator, my job is kind of to be a little bit like Sherlock Holmes. So, as we have a new resident come in, I'll walk into I'll, I'll knock and get to know you and I'll kind of look around the room. I want to know what you're interested in. If I see tractors, you know, collectable tractors, I'm going to, I'm going to bet that you're a farmer.

I'm gonna bet that you like maybe to socialize. That maybe you'd be interested in maybe some of our gardening activities. I'll ask you some questions. Like what you're interested in, what are your hobbies? I might see that you knit maybe, maybe you like to play cards. I had a resident, we'll call her Beth, I was, I walked into her room and I couldn't really get her to go to some of the other activities and I'm like, hmm, what would she be interested in? And so I found out from one of her family members that she enjoyed playing cards and she'd been here for awhile. And, so I got to hook her up with our seniors, that play cards every night. It's one of our most popular events. They play cards, dominoes, you name it, they do it.

And so I got to connect her with that group of people that pursue her hobbies. And so she goes to that all the time and it was just, it was really cool to see her blossom in that way, because she just got to pursue something that she enjoyed.

So basically I get to, I go in, I find out what you like and I try to hook you up with the, the many, many activities that we have going on. If you like, one of the things, that our residents like to do is they like to give back. And so that's one of our, I think primal needs is to give back and so and to make a difference. So, one of our residents, she's musically gifted, so she'll hold singalongs for the other residents. And I have actually, she plans that activity all by herself. We just put it on the calendar.

I have another resident, she sees a need and she'll bring it to me. And she wanted to create a place for people to do puzzles. And personally, I'm not that into puzzles, but I'm like, you know what, we'll give it a try. And so we set up a table in the middle of the hallway to the side and you will not believe how popular it is. We'll have residents pop by. They'll do puzzles together. And so she just made that difference. She created a place of community.

We have other residents that are more able to get up and go, and they're always helping other residents that maybe need a hand or, helping with a game they need help with. We have, we'll call her Betty. She just brings laughter to our community. She's always up for a good laugh. She came out one day, for her birthday wearing a pink wig, and playing her favorite game, bingo.

So we have all of these different activities going on upcoming. We're making chewy, apple cookies. So, we have a new activities room, down in our north wing. And so that's bringing a whole plethora of new ideas and we actually have a kitchen that connects. So if you like to cook, we're doing making chewy, apple cookies. We're always doing something like that. And I continue to be surprised at our residents because they have so many varied interests and they just love to bake. And I'm sure they are better bakers than I, so, I just found out recently how much they enjoy that. So we're doing more baking activities.

And then we have Resident Council, you can bring your ideas, any improvement, suggestions, comments, and every month we do that. So we're constantly growing, we're adapting to our community and we're, you have the opportunity to make a difference. And some other upcoming activities we're making bird seed ornaments. We have an audio book hour. That's actually something we just added last week. So, we're listening to the audio book At Home in Midford. It's about a different little town and all the adventures that happen there. So that's been popular. We have a story hour. We're reading Little Women by request right now. After we finish the book, we're going to watch the movie.

We're making homemade noodles and they can display any momentos or crafts that they make. And so we really get to see the uniqueness of every resident come out on those shelves.

Okay, so this is great. At Maple Grove, it's a little bit different. So, we craft some different activities for them. Maybe some that are a little easier. We love to get residents involved in what they enjoy doing. So, we'll do, actually do manicures over at Maple Grove. We do them a Hickory too, but we do manicures at Maple Grove because our residents just love to have clean nails, fun colors.

I've even done like hand massages over there and we've, we've done those at Hickory too. Recently one of our most popular activities, of late was making pine cone bird feeders. So, we took peanut butter and we put that using little Popsicle sticks. We smeared those on the pine cones. And then we rolled them in bird seed and added a little hanger and we put them out for the birds. So, that was something that was really fun for Maple Grove.

We did it recently and I haven't checked it since then. I am going to assume the birds liked it. Yes. My coworker actually did that one. So I'll have to ask her when I get back.

Yeah. And so, one of the things that's really popular and most of these activities, we might just have a different format for our memory care versus our assisted living over at Hickory Grove. So we just, we, we tailor it to our community and based on the needs of, of that residence in particular.

So, one of the things that's really, really popular at both places is our bus rides. So we get to take our residents through the countryside to different towns, where they grew up if possible, and we get to see the new changes in the community. Because just because you get older, doesn't mean that you don't want to be involved in your community. And in fact, it becomes so important and we want to keep those connections alive. We want to see what's going on. And our seniors love to interact with our community because people need people. And that's one of the things that we hold sacred. So we try to keep everybody involved in the community. One of my favorite things that we did on the bus ride was we had Sittin By the River. And so I, I think we did that with the memory care as well. We took, our residents down by the river by river road and there were some picnic tables and so I got to take them out and, we drank some soda, had some cheese and crackers and watched the ducks float by on the river. And that was one of our most popular activities. I think that actually was with Hickory Grove.

So yeah, so we did that. That was, that was really fun. And then I just took our Maple Grove residents on a bus ride yesterday and they just had so much fun. We went down, looked at all the trees that are changing colors. we went down by Hamilton by River Road, and that was with our Maple Grove residents. So that was, that was a lot of fun.

Oh, wow. One just, we want you to have fun. We want you to thrive. I believe that your senior years, they should be filled with meaningful things. We want you to pursue the things that make you happy. We want you to be able to make a difference. And we're going to help you do that.

It doesnt have to be boring. So our staff got together for them. It was called Things You Should Not Mix, Farmers, Formadehyde and Fiances. So we had so much fun. Our Hancock Village team got together. We practiced for hours throughout a couple of weeks to bring it to our residents because we just wanted to bring them an evening of fun. If you can't go out, we're going to bring you. So, we had so much fun, they got to guess who the killer was. And we had so many so many laughs from our residents. It really was. It's one of our favorite events of the year.

Well thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, my word.

Yeah.

Okay. So our sensory rooms, it's so cool. And we revamp them all the time. We've created kind of two parts. We kind of have a calming room now, so you can go in and there is this love seat with a soft .... As you get, maybe more advanced in dementia, sometimes it's kind of maybe a little difficult to reach them on the conversational level that they were used to having.

So it becomes more of, I just want to be with you. I will come to the place that you are at. And so you can sit with them on that, that love seat. We have this, it shoots lights up into the ceiling and we kind of dim down the lights. And you can just relax in there with your loved one. It brings, if they're having kind of a rough day, it kind of brings that, that tone down and helps them relax.

We have different games for them to interact with and you can interact with them and it just provides a place for family members to interact with their loved one and a way that the loved one can react with them. So that's, that's really one of the cool things. And we actually have iPads now. So if you want to take some fun pictures, if you want to look up some music that you enjoy, that your resident or your loved one enjoyed listening to when they were younger, you can look that up and we just have lots of sensory items that they can, they can play with and mess with. And it's just, it's really fun. It's a great place for them to relax and just enjoy the day.

Yes. COVID was definitely a challenge and it still is a challenge. But one thing at Hancock Village is we, we adapt. Whatever comes, we're going to roll with the punches and we're gonna, we're gonna enjoy life no matter what happens. So, one thing that we've been doing, during COVID during some of the lockdowns, when it was really, really serious, we actually held bingo in the hallways.

So our residents would bring their tables to the door, the little TV trays. And so I take the microphone. We do bingo in the hallways. We had, I think donut day during one of them. Crazy Hat Day, Christmas in July. I would actually play music down the hallways with my violin, and my guitar and, and on if we're in a pinch, I can use the ukulele, but only in a pinch And so we, we did some of those activities. We, I think we even did a wine and cheese and crackers social during that time. So we're adaptable. We're gonna roll with the punches here. And during, when we can't let the community come in as much, we've had national ice cream cone day, we just hold activities that are socially distanced. You know, we may wear masks.

And we've done some pretty fun activities even though we can't go out. Like I said, we brought the theater in to our residents. We've had milkshakes. One thing that I like to do for my residents is a Paint-n-Sip class because we all want to express our deepest feeling in our soul. And so art allows you to do that. So I play some music in the background. We, we paint some scenes together and once we had a charcuterie board, some sparkling grape juice, and we just laughed and had a good time together. So that was really fun.

And one thing that we did recently, one thing that we did recently, which was one of my favorites was we did Senior Olympics. So, that was really fun. Our whole, Hickory Grove and Maple Grove, we did those events separately, but we, they each had their Hancock Village Summer Olympics. We did balloon volleyball, we did golf and we did the javelin toss. So, they got to, they got to saw, well, we did this beforehand. We sawed the noodles in half and they got to throw the noodles as far as they could. And we would measure who threw it the longest. So we even got medals for 'em. It was a big to-do.

We passed the torch to music. It was awesome. And then to include our staff, we did staff wheelchair racing, and they got to bet on who they thought would win.

Yes. Okay. So right now we can't allow volunteers to come in, which is unfortunate. And I miss, I miss my volunteers so much and we, for a little bit, we were able to have volunteers come in and they were, they were kids and it was it's so awesome to see seniors and teenagers interact, especially like the younger ones, because we would have them paint our seniors' nails.

And so it was fun to watch the younger generation and the older generation come together and to share the best of both worlds. Because seniors just love to see a smile and the vitality of youth. And they get to pass on the wisdom that they have accumulated through their lives and share that with the younger generation.

And so both people benefit from that. And then we do, dog therapy. So I had, a younger girl who was interested in dogs. And so I had her take our dog Saya to different residents. And so she was able to do pet therapy visits. And so that's just a couple of things that our younger volunteers do. And then we have people come in from the community. Not during this time, but, in the past, we, they come in, they play music for our residents. They bring programs. Right now during COVID, we had a bank, I think they were from Bowen, that gave us games and goody bags for our residents and so we were able to distribute those to our residents on campus. We've done a Pet Parade. Our community brought in pets and we paraded them around the windows during COVID and it just made our residents' day. We've had flowers donated from our community from weddings, even some from residents who have passed away or from funerals. They have gifted us with those beautiful pieces to adorn the tables and bring joy to our residents. So that's one of the things that's really popular is just donating flowers to our residents.

And some of the churches around the area, they donate to our general store. Our residents are able to go shopping in our general store. We have like toilet paper, cool little gifts that they can buy for the grandkids, everyday items, candy. They can go in and have a shopping experience with the wellness bucks that they earned from like going to activities, attending resident council, doing exercise programs.

We reward our residents for keeping themselves in good health and they could even put it towards hair tickets. Cause we have Angie, our hairdresser comes in and does our residents' hair. So we want our girls feeling fabulous so they can go and have their hair done. And so, our churches donate to our general store. We have a first Baptist Church in Keokuk that make birthday quilts for our residents. And you cannot imagine the joy that our residents have when they open up a homemade quilt. And just that somebody, somebody remembered them on their birthday. And that's, we have another church in, in town that does little gifts for our residents on their birthday. And so that's also a very popular and appreciated.

Okay.

Okay. Yes. I can definitely go into that. Meaning and purpose. One thing for me is it's very important to keep growing as a person, no matter how old we get, we always want to be growing and helping others. So, one thing that we do is we get together and we have Motivational Mondays. And so we learn about the power of positivity, the importance of relationship. We do even some fun psychology hacks, organization, holding at starting conversations and just having very deep and meaningful, conversations with people. And I had a resident tell me afterwards, she's like this, I believe that Motivational Mondays helped us get through last year and it's not just a class. It's kind of, we have our own little group and they're just so positive and fun and they want to learn and grow together. And so that's one of the meaningful things that we do. We had a talent show, they got to share their gifts, with the other residents and bring just joy through that talent show. We had singers and pianists. We had a lady who told jokes. It was so funny. And they just had such a great time. And we did, during Motivational Mondays, we had them write a letter to their grandkids. So we had that then for a while we did pen pals and they would, they would write to the kids in the schools and the kids would write back. That was really fun. And they just get to, at Hancock Village, you are just allowed to, to be you and to bring your gifts. We have residents that just step up to the plate, help anybody who is in need. They use their gifts to the benefit of everybody else and it's just a community where we help each other and use our gifts to the benefit of everybody there. So.

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Well, thank you. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you so much. I enjoy doing these things. Get the word out, about Hancock Village, you know, because it is so fun. I love having residents come in. And, did you, did you like the ending or do you think we need to redo the ending. Okay. Good. Okay.

Yeah.

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for having me.

All right. Thank you so much. You have a great one. Bye. Thank you. I will. Thank you so much. Bye.