Activities

On a recent blustery day, residents gathered outside their apartments, and standing 6 feet apart, blew soap bubbles into the wind. They also waved bubbles as greetings to those watching from their windows and drew cheery messages to staff and neighbors using colorful sidewalk chalk.

Despite the warmer spring weather, residents managed to have a May “snowball fight,” hurling white yarn pompoms at one another in a friendly battle.

Residents also decorated the campus trees with 1,000 origami paper cranes, a Japanese tradition believed by some to bring good luck or good health.

There are plenty of indoor activities for the fun-loving crowd at The Heritage, too, Anderson said.

One of the most innovative is the upcoming

“reptile exhibit,” which should not cause alarm even in those afraid of snakes, she said. The serpents to be displayed in the facility’s halls will be made of wood and painted by residents with bright patterns drawn from nature and their imaginations.

The seniors also have visited museums and gardens around the world using technology to take them on virtual tours of the Louvre, Longwood Gardens and Metropolitan Museum of Art, among many others.

Technology also is helping those at The Heritage and other senior communities stay in touch with friends and family off campus. Residents are using applications such as Skype, Zoom and FaceTime to video chat and see the faces of their loved ones.

“Each (of Diakon’s facilities) is focused on maintaining contacts to the extent possible since the visitor restrictions went into effect,” Swanger said, noting a supply of iPads was ordered to aid communications between residents and their families.

Regular use of technology is one of the positives to come out of the coronavirus crisis, Torrillo said. It has allowed residents to connect virtually face-to-face with family out of state who might not be able to visit in person even without the COVID-19 restrictions.

Meeting applications, such as Zoom, also go beyond the one-on-one voice interactions of a phone call and enable larger groups of people to see each other’s faces and hear each other’s voices.

“One resident recently celebrated his 94th birthday in a Zoom meeting with friends and family,” Torrillo said.

Residents also enjoy “window visits,” waving to loved ones while safely protected from physical contact, he said, and Duchess, the alpaca, has become a regular visitor at Manatawny’s windows.