Lessons from living in a retirement community for 24 years

Fifty years ago, we were hard at work at Hesston (Kan.) College. Our first child was about 5 when it seemed advisable to take into our home my wife’s folks. Our daughter grew up with four German adults over her—no screaming or hollering allowed. Thirty years later, we learned a lesson too late. A counselor helped her understand she was bothered by perfectionism—being right, getting straight As, dressing right—not because of what she felt was best for her but what others felt was best for her.

My first lesson about retirement communities was that it would have been much better for our daughter if her grandparents had been in a retirement community when she was growing up. In today’s fast-paced world there is too great a generation gap between “the old folks” and the youngsters for them to be living under the same roof. There are few “grossfatter” houses any more.

My second lesson emerged when I came to Glencroft Retirement Community in Glendale, Ariz., in 1985 to be their first paid staff director of activities. I learned quickly that some of our residents would live one-third of their lives in a retirement community. What will they do to find meaningfulness? Many had been hard working and come through the Depression.

Work was worthwhile, and any other expenditure of energy was wasted time—except for church-related activity. Many were tired from all that hard work and the pressures of life and thought, I will sit me down in a rocking chair by the fire and rest up for 20 years. That rocking chair was good for about one month before utter boredom rocked in.

We activity people at Glencroft came up with this motto: “The rocking chair is not our symbol.” We discovered that to get the people off their duff we had to do a super job of selling the idea that if we don’t use it, we lose it. We had so many activities going, especially exercises such as swimming, shuffleboard, walking, horseshoes, billiards, bowling (off campus), golf (off campus) and exercise classes that the administration thought we might be overdoing it. But now (in 2009) we know that exercise not only keeps the muscles in tune but the whole body, including the heart, digestive system and our brain (new synapses in the brain are developed by vigorous exercise). We can’t minimize the need for bodily exercise—even for people in wheelchairs.

For my third lesson, I discovered that retirement from our jobs can bring on loneliness. Even in the close living quarters of a retirement community residents can hole up in their apartments and be lonely. To encourage more sociability we promoted group activities to get residents out of their apartments and mix with their neighbors. We brought in regular Friday night programs in our nice auditorium, which seats 200. These programs have become foundational to our total activity program. They are not put over our campus TV channel so the residents will not be tempted to sit by themselves but get out and join the crowd.

The auditorium was a sea of red one week, with balloons all over the place and cheerleaders from a local high school there to help clean out all the particulates from our lungs as we revved up our enthusiasm for the Phoenix Cardinals football team going to play in the Super Bowl. A reporter from the Glendale newspaper took it all in. Donna Swartz, who became director of activities in 1995, knows how to put on parties and celebration.

A fourth lesson is that there is the need to keep up the culture side of life: the Friday Night specials, campus-sponsored excursions to the nationally renowned Native American Heard Museum, Japanese gardens, plays, art museums, dinner theaters and state caverns. And let’s not forget the painting art classes that Swartz conducts or the lip-reading classes for hard-of-hearing residents or the weekly movies on travel, science, music, nature, comedy, religion and drama.

What else brings fulfillment and quality to life? When we give, we shall receive. Glencroft has discovered by persuasion and experience that one of the more important things is the volunteerism that happens on the campus and in the care center, headed up by staff person Jeanne McMenimen’s Glencrof-teers’ volunteer organization. In 2008, more than 550 people volunteered more than 46,500 hours of service. Over half these were from off campus, but many residents are putting time into quilting for our ($150,000) annual benefit auction in March, the campus pantry grocery store, the care center flower and gift nook and the campus thrift shop for clothes. Monies from these residential enterprises go back into projects that enhance the campus and care center—between $30,000 and $40,000.

Quality volunteer time is also being given to our hospice program in the care center and to three residential organizations: the self-governing Glencroft Residents Association, the Glencrof-teers (mentioned above) and the resident reps. The GRA includes all residents as members and holds a monthly town meeting to conduct business and present information—from the mayor’s office to recycling to the fire and police departments. The Glencrof-teers promote and conduct the volunteer program, while the resident reps conduct monthly meetings and become the moccasin telegraph for campus information and news.

I have also learned that to have a vibrant retirement community it should have a strong care center, assisted-living options and social worker staff to direct home-care programs and conduct social/psychological needs analysis of residents. There also needs to be housekeeping, grounds and maintenance departments to care for the infrastructure.

Also important is a quality weekly newspaper, such as the “Glencroft Communicator,” edited by staff person Barb Leonard, which ties together all the campus activities and offers the promos to keep the campus wheels greased and turning.

A self-governing church on the campus offers those who don’t drive anymore a home church to attend. They hire their own pastor, and spirituality on the campus is enhanced.
A modern day computer lab with printers helps seniors tap into their family activities near and far and is well used.

Little of this will happen if there is not a quality CEO and management team and a creative director of activities.

Many of our residents say, “We should have retired here earlier so we could have enjoyed more of these opportunities for quality living.”

Does this sound like utopia? No. There are big challenges to keep retirement communities afloat, especially in this down economy.

Glencroft has been my home for 24 years and shall remain so for whatever years are yet mine.

Evan Oswald is a resident at Glencroft Retirement Community in Glendale, Ariz.