Pictured: Members, Caregivers and Staff rockin’ out!
Drive-In Style Activities for Seniors
at Friendship Center
By Kathryn Cherkas, MIPH
For over 40 years, Friendship Center has been a post in our community for compassionate care for aging adults. Friendship Center’s two sites, one in Montecito and the other in Goleta, offer exciting day programs for adults and seniors to enjoy daily while offering caregivers respite. Since closing our physical doors on March 16th due to COVID-19 precautions, we have had to find alternative ways to connect with our beloved senior friends. First we went to Zoom, beating the odds at creating a successful, fully online day program enjoyed by over forty seniors across sixteen virtual classes a week. Next we went to Take Care Totes, which are tote bags of activities and snacks assembled and delivered to our seniors with the help of The Bucket Brigade and Easy Lift. Both of these efforts were received far better than we could have expected, so we have decided to throw another form of service delivery in the mix.
On Wednesday, June 17th, Friendship Center held the first ever ‘Drive-In Activity Hour’. Our senior members and their caregivers joined us from the safety of their cars in the Montecito Friendship Center’s parking lot, with each car backed into a designated space at least 6ft from another vehicle. The majority of our senior friends live with a dementia diagnosis and many have co-occurring diagnoses as well, making this a particularly vulnerable population to illness exposure; because of this, most of the seniors have not left their homes since the COVID-19 threat came to Santa Barbara in mid-March. This event was many of the seniors’ first times leaving their homes and seeing familiar faces and spaces in three months!
Decorated with signs, balloons and ten staff members dressed in fun outfits running around with bubble machines and maracas, the parking lot quickly filled up with cars of our senior friends and their families who were dancing to the classic 1960s playing on our sound system. Once parked, the cars we shaking; the seniors were so happy to see familiar faces blowing kisses and waving at them!
Staff led the guests, who remained in their car for the duration of the event, through a fun seated exercise/dance and then passed the baton over to Trudy and Oscar, the musical duo that has been performing at Friendship Center for decades. I can only imagine that you would have heard the singing of nearly forty people from down the block! After a thirty-minute musical performance, we ended the session with some shout-out brain games.
While this was an unconventional way of connecting with our friends, the impact it had on the families as well as the staff, who develop a familial connection whilst caring for the seniors, was invaluable. It may have looked funny with everyone sitting distanced in their cars with masks on but they once again were able to sing together, dance together and just be together. That is the greatest thing we have created at Friendship Center, giving our seniors and their caregivers a community of their own. We are so proud to have found a new way of creating this community and look forward to coming together again soon.
