Bunny

We have a resident welcoming committee which is something the residents asked for in resident council. They meet once monthly to assemble simple silk floral arrangements and create stamped welcome cards which the committee signs. If a woman is admitted they take her a small floral arrangement, and a current activity schedule as well as one of our newsletters a small pad of paper and a pencil. Also included in the bag is an information sheet with items on it like the hours of our bank, names of key people, a resident that they can go to for information, etc.... It is very popular with newcomers and our committee feels like they are offering a valuable service. A man admitted gets all of the same except not usually the floral arrangement. I buy small plastic fruit bowls at our Local dollar store in the catering supplies, they look like cut glass and are 4 to a pack for a dollar. We buy silk flowers whenever they are on sale, and also ask for donations of silk flowers in our newsletter. I have one very strong res who assists with cutting the flowers to a short length. The residents choose flowers ( usually not more than 5) and glue a chunk of foam ( often half a foam ball)in the bottom then insert the flowers. We have a welcome stamp that they can use to create a card. We also have all purpose blank cards that are donated that can be used. The same committee actually sends sympathy cards to families that have a loss, and, if that person had a special friend or circle of friends the committee sends a card to them as well. I put all of the supplies together on a cart lableled welcome committee and if they need access to the cart in between times my staff can pull it out for them. Bunny

Having a strawberry theme week in May. We will kick it off with a strawberry shortcake social.....strawberries, individual sponge cakes, a spray can whipped cream! It is as much fun to make these as they are to eat ( almost) and each person will make their own. We provide each with a styro cup of cut berries, a cake, a bowl to create in, and then pass the cans down the table! Green pint baskets of strawberries are great as centerpeices! We'll have hidden cut out strawberries through out the facility, and the finder of the most of them gets a pound of chocolate covered strawberries( dietary is making em for us!) Strawberry sundaes are for another day, and we will be making our own strawberry sauce to top vanilla ice cream. This is a really simple sugar and strawberries in the blender thing, washing the berries will be the most effort, and we are using gloves! Red bean bags with green silk leaves sewn on top make our strawberry bean bag game for this day, and we are tossing them into green mesh organizing baskets( they resemble the tiny pint baskets!) Winners get strawberry lip gloss or some strawberry wrapped hard candies. We plan to plant some everbearing strawberry plants, here is a link with info: http://www.wiberries.org/kids/activities.pdf A simple strawberry puzzler game for a social: Cut out strawberry shapes and write strawberry trivia on them. ( laminate if you have a laminator) Cut in half by curve or zig zag, each person must find the other half of their berry to complete their question...or you could have the question on one half, and the answer on the other. Another strawberry game: Roll a die, one for the berry, two for the stem, three for the leaves, 4 for the seeds, 5 for your choice, 6 you miss a turn. All you need are a blackboard and chalk or write on wipe off and a marker and one die. Each person can work on a berry or they can do it as two teams. Hope these ideas have inspired you to try a good old fashioned strawberry social! Bunny

I am sure many of you have seen my postings elsewhere as I am very active on the net in various groups and especially in the Activity Directors online world! I am glad to be a part of our profession, I have never wanted to do anything else! See you online! :-)