At Deerfield, you can always find a group to join for an activity or subject of interest. Over the years, in addition to committees and subcommittees that serve as part of the Resident Council, residents have created groups to support a variety of interests. The number has grown to forty-seven Resident-Led groups available to residents on campus. Yes, forty-seven!
But let’s back up – the Deerfield Resident Council includes eight committees. These committees cover the following areas: Programs & Activities, Dining, Facilities, Welcome (New Residents), Employee Appreciation, Health & Wellness, Finance, and Special Projects. Within each committee is a subcommittee, and in addition to those, there are Resident-Led groups. If this were a tree, what a tree one can envision!
Resident-Led groups include the AARP Tax Aides, Sewing Sowers who sew clothing for children in need all over the world, creative groups like Paper Capers Plus and Writer’s Read, and other interests such as Practical Sign Language, Spanish Conversation, Games, Theater, and why not, a Wig Society.
We would like to introduce you to some of these committees and groups and will tell you a little more about them each month in the Deerfield Connection. This month, we’ll start with a brief history of the subcommittee of the Health & Wellness Committee, so named the Cognitive Subcommittee, as provided by its members.
The Cognitive Subcommittee is an ad hoc committee of the Health and Wellness Committee, chaired by Dave Galentine. Our mission for the past two plus years has been to educate and communicate about many aspects of dementia. We focus on both the caretakers and those with memory impairment.
Marian Sigmon organized and found funding from the Deerfield Charitable Foundation for two simultaneous support groups here at Deerfield. One is for the Caregivers, the other for the “Navigators,” their partners with memory loss. These two groups will be starting their third year and have been extremely helpful and very well received by the Deerfield Community. Mary Donnelly, nationally known dementia consultant, educator/trainer with MemoryCare and with the national dementia expert Teepa Snow and Mel Kelly, founding member of Dementia Friendly WNC and Education Director, and certified in the Validation Therapy Method, are the groups’ popular facilitators.
Click below to read all about the history of this subcommittee by Vaughan Schwarz, Chair and Sandra Whitmore, Assistant.