HARVEST MOON
Participants put on dancing shoes
BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. » The Saratoga Center for Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation hosted its first annual Harvest Moon ballroom dancing event Thursday night.
“We always look for the opportunities to be able to add something for our residents ... something new and fresh they haven’t done,” said director of activities Holly Desnoyers.
Residents invited family members to the facility for a dinner and a night full of ballroom dancing.
The ballroom dancing was brought to the facility by Capital District Ballroom Dancers, which is part of USA Dance and Dance Sport.
Pete Ricciardone’s father has been in the facility for shortly over two years, and he was excited to attend Thursday night’s event.
“Anything that gets them involved and gets them out of their room. We take him out a lot. He likes to get out, so he likes the
“We always look for the opportunities to be able to add something for our residents ... something new and fresh they haven’t done.” — director of activities Holly Desnoyers
social aspect of things,” said Ricciardone. “They had the car show. That was really fabulous. He loved the car show. He went around and said, ‘Hey, I owned that car, and I used to own that car.’ He had a ball.”
The car show took place in the summer right after the new CEO Danielle Zastawny relocated from the Binghamton area.
“I was relocated up here to make significant changes in the building and bring new life and new light to the facility,” said Zastawny.
Zastawny began working at Saratoga Center for Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation in June.
One way Zastawny has made an impact has been the activities she’s helped run.
“There were like 40 antique cars that came over the summer,” said Zastawny. “We just want to involve the community; we want to get the community involved with our residents and our staff and just rebuild that connection and bring that positive spirit back to this building.”
The Harvest Moon event was similar to events Zastawny has done before.
“These are things that I’ve done in the past that I’ve brought to facilities that have shown success by proven, positive camaraderie and team building, community building,” said Zastawny. “I did this back in another facility with my admissions team and my activities team and we just brought this in; and we wanted everybody to participate, have a meal on us and just enjoy the ballroom dancers, enjoy the food and enjoy everybody’s company.”