COCHRANE— A resident-favourite painting program was able to go forward at Points West Living thanks the generosity of Cochranites, and pottery painting studio Crock-a-Doodle.
Shortly after COVID-19 swept through the country and forced organizations everywhere to change their operations, the recreation department at Points West reached out to the community looking for people to teach virtual classes for the residents said Jessica Kraig, recreation manager at Points West Living.
“I had gotten some responses from people about teaching classes virtually and Wendy [Maguire] had reached out because she had seen it,” Kraig said. “She mentioned she would be able to drop off all of the supplies and everything we would need.”
Crock-a-Doodle is the service which provided the pottery and painting supplies for the program, and even transports the finished products to and from a studio where they set the paint in a kiln. Typically, Maguire would come in to teach the class as well, which is not possible during the pandemic.
It is a service that Points West had used previously for a ceramic painting program that the residents of the facility greatly enjoyed, but the supplies are very expensive, especially for seniors who are often on a fixed income.
“It’s quite pricey and it’s just not feasible for our residents to be able to do that very often, and I had expressed that concern to Wendy,” Kraig said.
That’s when the Adopt-a-Senior program began.
Maguire, the owner of Crock-a-Doodle in the Royal Oak neighbourhood in Calgary, put out a public call for people to sponsor the residents and provide them with the kits they would need to take part in the program.
The initial call for sponsorship was for 12 kits, which filled up quickly and the staff of Points West was able to expand the program to include four more residents. After the initial request was filled many more offers came in.
Kraig said they declined the additional offers just in case they wanted to do another similar program in the future.
“We had a huge response. We had way more than what we even needed,” Kraig said. “After we already had the 16, I said ‘why don’t we wait, if we do it again at some point.’ Just because we can’t have a huge group or it makes it really difficult for us to help them with it, because they needed out assistance with some of the painting— Everybody has different abilities and skills.”
Kraig said the staff has been thinking hard of ways that they can help ease the isolation that many of the residents are feeling right now, and this recent display of kindness from the community is a nice reminder that people outside of Points West are keeping the residents in their thoughts during this difficult time.
“It’s just such a hard time right now with COVID. Our residents are so isolated and everybody is just getting to that point where they’re feeling frustrated. It’s something nice that the community did for us and the residents are super appreciative,” Kraig said. “Imagine being in a place where you’re basically looking at the same four walls every day and you can’t go anywhere. It’s a little different for us because we can go to a restaurant if we want or go for a drive. Most of our residents for the last year have been very isolated.”
Kraig said she has already had residents asking when the projects will be returned and are looking forward to seeing the fruits of their labours.
Although Maguire runs a business based in Calgary, she is a resident of Cochrane, which is why she felt the need to help the seniors in town.
“Over Christmas I saw, across Cochrane, how everyone was so amazing and wonderful, and pretty much, I believe, any senior across Cochrane that was in a home basically got a wonderful donated Christmas gift,” Maguire said. “Everybody knew they were all kind of on their own and not able to have any visitors, and I thought nothing has really changed in that regard.”
Maguire said she has seen first-hand what a difference these fun projects can make for the residents in terms of their mental health, wellbeing and confidence.
The community support that the Adopt-a-Senior program received was inspiring and heart-warming, Maguire said.
“The community was amazing, as they usually are. They kind of rallied around them,” she said. “It was an outpouring. I didn’t know what to expect.”
Maguire said that she loved the response she saw and wanted to offer an invitation to any of the other senior’s facilities in town to do something similar.
