Bluebirds Sighted in New Denver!
Two legged Bluebirds are spotted regularly in the Pavilion. (The Pavilion is the extended care wing of the Slocan Community Health Centre in New Denver.) When a need and a desire aligned, a happy troop of volunteers was born. You can identify a Bluebird by the warm smile, yellow ID badge and unique logo on the shirt. The Bluebirds are an organically grown, small (but growing) band of volunteers who have coalesced around the shared desire to enrich the lives of the residents at the Pavilion, our long term care facility. With Covid regulations easing, we aim to make up lost ground for the human deprivations caused by the long Covid isolation periods. Our primary goal is simply to make them smile. Our secondary is to support our dedicated staff. Spontaneously we became the Bluebirds. A local professional graphic designer, Roni Jurgensen, donated her time to create our beautiful logo. We are not affiliated with any society, are non hierarchical, no one is paid and we operate directly under our facility administration and staff. Currently our team numbers 8 but we continue to grow because our enthusiasm is infectious. We bring varied and appropriate skills and experience: hospice work, home care worker, graphic design teacher, care aid, early childhood educator, etc. We love what we do and it shows in the plethora of ideas and positivity we contribute. Here are current Bluebird initiatives.
Tuesdays at Two. We support a group of generous, talented local musicians who light up the whole place by offering wonderful live performances. Fiddle Dee Dee headline whenever all 3 members of the trio are in town. They play old time jigs and reels and wonderfully evocative Celtic style waltzes. They reconfigure, adding and subtracting members to become duos for Golden Oldie singalongs. To watch the residents respond as the melody touches them is immensely warming. We Bluebirds swell the audience and share the excitement.
Art with Bluebirds:
Wednesday morning as many Bluebirds as we muster come in with a project prepared and gather up our oh so willing artist residents (9-10) in the activity room where we get creative. The best case scenario is when we can work one on one but sometimes it’s two residents to one volunteer. Occasionally a staff member will have been given a Recreation shift and will support us. There has been no designated Recreation coordinator in our facility for way too long so we provide vital artistic stimulation. Suffice to say everyone is revitalized and happy when we wheel them back in time for lunch.
Friendly Visits: Some of us make the additional commitment to show up as often as possible and be a buddy for an individual resident. Having a visit means an opportunity to get to know them in a variety of ways. We enjoy hearing their stories and about their families. A weekly visit can be playing cards, colouring together, doing a puzzle or reading to them. One Bluebird is preparing a waist high planter to share gardening with her buddy.
Outdoor Outings: Now the weather allows we have begun to focus on getting our folks out into the fresh air as often as we can. We have begun with a pair of Bluebirds taking small groups out on Sunday afternoons to sit in the garden where staff serve their afternoon snacks. Even more eventful is to take a resident alone or with a friend or two for wheelchair tours of the neighbourhood so they can enjoy the lake and the spring greenery. They absolutely love this opportunity. One 97 year old remarked “”How lovely! We get to rejoin the human race.” In summary, her words highlight the goal of the Bluebirds. Above all we want our residents to know they’ve not been forgotten; that they really are valued members of the human race and enrich our community. When a wonderful staffer said “The Bluebirds could be a franchise.” it got us thinking. Perhaps there are other small communities who might adopt our Bluebird model? We believe it offers a simple model well worth emulating?
