Get out those jeans and cowboy boots: it’s International Country Music Day! Organize a big hoedown event in your community. Encourage residents to dress up, get those bales of hay out, invite a local country music entertainer, serve Southern BBQ grub, such as ribs, beans, and corn, and encourage your residents to dance the night away.
Who doesn’t love chocolate? Why not celebrate International Chocolate Day with a post-dinner chocolate tasting! Here are the basics:
1) Chop or break up the bars into small pieces. Put each bar on its own plate, and set the wrapper beside it. You could always do the tasting “blind” and save the wrappers until the end – it is amazing the effect a pretty wrapper has on many people's perception of a bar.
2) Don't serve drinks or other food with the chocolate.
3) Once you are ready, have each guest taste the same bar at the same time following this process:
When selecting chocolate for a tasting, try 4 to 6 different bars, and one bar will usually serve 8 people, leaving enough for a second taste — a great excuse to enjoy lots of types of chocolate!
Literacy opens up a world of opportunities to anyone and can set the foundation for a bright future for kids. With this in mind, you can celebrate World Literacy Day with your residents by hosting an Intergenerational Reading Event. Invite a local classroom to come to your community and pair each child up with a resident to have them practice their reading. This will be a touching, fun and supportive activity for everyone involved!
So many older adults have spent time volunteering for various organizations and charities. World Charity Day is a great opportunity to get those residents who love to give back together and do a charitable give back event. Whether it’s collecting clothing or food donations, offering to do a reading event for a literacy organization, or hosting a fundraiser for a local charity, there are so many great ways to give back to those in need. Not only will your local community benefit, but it will help your residents connect and feel good about giving back.
A great day to go a little coco-nuts! World Coconut Day! Along with being a delicious, versatile fruit, coconut has many benefits. Its oil can be applied on the skin, it can be used in food, and it contains various anti-fungal, antiviral, antioxidant and antibacterial elements.
Celebrate this versatile fruit by having a tropical happy hour! Encourage lei’s, floral prints, and big sun hats and serve a cocktail inside a coconut with a little straw. Another great thing about coconuts is that for those non-drinkers in your community, coconut water is delicious! Throw on some beach tunes and you’ve got yourselves a coco-nutty party!
While letter writing may not be as common today, many of your residents will remember the days of writing their life updates to friends and family when they were younger. On September 1st, World Letter Writing Day, you can run an activity for your residents that pays tribute to the days when you got excited to receive a handwritten letter in the mail.
For all the residents who wish to participate, put their names into a jar and have them draw names. The name chosen is the person they will write a “Just Because” letter: a letter that can say anything and everything, but that focuses on why that resident matters or what they bring to others’ lives. To add a fun element, have a staff member act as a mail carrier and hand deliver the letters to residents later in the day. Everyone loves getting things in the mail!
Swing your partner dosey doe, swing your partner here we go! September is International Square Dancing Month, and it’s a great opportunity for your residents to dust off their dancing shoes and brush up on their square dancing skills. Invite a local square dancing teacher once a week to teach your residents how to square dance. If you have some particularly skilled dancers, consider running a beginner class as well as an advanced class. As always, we would love to see videos, so feel free to share!
Celebrate all things photography today! Why August 19th? On January 9, 1839, the French government announced that Louis Daguerre, one of the big papas of photography, had invented an amazing photographic process that came to be called the daguerreotype. Later that year, on August 19, 1839, the government made the even greater announcement that this wondrous process would be free to the world!
Photography is something that has become more accessible in the past twenty years because of technology, so explore some activity ideas for your residents today that all revolve around photography. Do a fun photoshoot with your residents, filled with props, backgrounds, and funny outfits. Take it to the next level by hiring a photographer or renting a photo booth. Maybe schedule an outing to a photography exhibit with some of your residents or go out to take some photos with them. Or, host a technology program where you support residents to learn how to take photos with their phones, iPads, or a point and shoot camera. Happy shooting!
Calligraphy is such a beautiful form of art, but most people have never even tried it. Well, World Calligraphy Day is the day for that. Invite a local calligraphy artist in to teach your residents the art of calligraphy and support them as they learn. Not only will they learn a new skill and get an opportunity for artistic expression, but it’s something they can practice on their own and share with family and loved ones.
For all those left-handed residents in your community who could never find the right scissors, had their elbows bumped at the table, or were forced to write with their right hand in school, today is their day. Challenge your right-handed residents to do everything in programs today with their left hand. Not only will they be able to commiserate and connect with your left-handed residents, but it will bring lots of laughs.
