Lockdown Activities: Thank-You Banners (April-July 2020)

Saturday, April 4, 2020
Starting today, the first day out of quarantine, we started putting up our handmade thank-you banners. Most everyone, especially staff, at Granite Farms Estates has had to adapt and work outside their normal routines. Having been in quarantine, our initial focus was the culinary staff who called us twice a day for our meal orders and delivered them to us.

Thank You, Culinary!

Some residents started signing the banner.

Thank You, GFE Staff!

Apparently, GFE Staff was too general. So...

Thank You, Housekeeping!

Housekeeping could no longer clean in apartments of the residents, but they had to continue to maintain, clean, and now disinfect all common areas.

Thank You, Maintenance!

These banners are made from sheets of used paper. We had plenty of paper from all the communications from Acts Corporate and GFE administration. The letters were cut from colored missives, many from Life Engagement. Packaging tape connected the sheets into a banner, and the letters were glued. However, the pastels colors did not stand out from the white background. I outlined the letters with a thick black magic marker, but it was difficult to keep the lines straight. Since the letters then looked a little ragged, I outlined each letter with peaks or bumps in varying colors.

Thank You, Security!

Administrative staff were the ones coming around to pass out treats, such as on Ice Cream Wednesdays! We added them to the GFE Staff sign in the lobby.

Thank You, GFE Staff! Plus Admin!

Now that we were out and about the community, we saw how departments such as Transportation pitched-in, especially with delivering large packages to our apartments (since they could not drive residents anywhere!).

Thank You, Security! Plus Transportation!

National Nurses Day was May 6th, so we made sure all health care workers were recognized.

Thank You, Wellness!

I was running out of materials, and had to go dumpster diving (paper recycling) for more paper, and borrow markers!

Thank You, All OBT [OakBridge Terrace, Assisted Living] Staff!

Thank You, All WBC [WillowBrooke Court, Skilled Nursing] Staff!

Thank You, Rehab!

Thanks, Jan!

Jan is the Life Engagement Director and she was in every day to come up with activities that could be done with social distancing, online, etc.

Thanks, Alfred!

Alfred is the Chaplain, who also was in every day, and did many devotionals throughout the week on the in-house TV station.

Thanks, Janel!

Janel is our Fitness Director, and she also developed fitness routines for in-house TV and found recorded exercise programs as well as hosted activities with social distancing. Even with a young child at home, she was at GFE every day.

Thank You, USPS Linda!

Although she is not a GFE staff member, she is our mail carrier and she continued delivering through the pandemic.

Thank You, Lifecare!

Although continuing to virtually "sell" Granite Farms Estates, Lifecare staff also pitched-in with telephone calls to residents to make sure we were doing alright, and helping out where needed.

Not to be left out: Thank You, Home Health!

We also realized that resident volunteers were doing extra. Arts & Crafts were sewing face masks to insure that every resident had one. And, instead of Saturday movies in the auditorium, the Audio-Visual committee members were televising a movie every day! So, a "Thank You, GFE Volunteers" banner.

We had to make many repairs to several of the banners as time passed.
On July 10th, we were asked to take down the banners, as many were falling apart and one had a ceiling leak over it that started to melt it away.
The banners could not compete with pizza or cookies that a couple residents and their families provided to the staff in thanks. We tried to show our appreciation with what we had on hand.