Teen’s Passion Awakens Precious Memories
A passion for Memory Care isn’t common among teenagers, but then Sam Jarvis isn’t a common teen either. Sam is only 16, but he is a familiar face at Cross Keys Village, having volunteered in Health Care for several years and joined the Community Life team part-time more recently. We also know him for his unique annual fundraising effort.
The Music & Memory program is a nationwide initiative with strong representation on our campus, that seeks to enable individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia to listen to the “music of their lives.” Sensory memory remains vivid in the later stages of the disease, and listening to familiar music can be of great awakening and reassuring benefit.
Of course music requires equipment, and Music and Memory relies on iPods, earbuds, speakers, chargers and more. That is where Sam enters the picture. A few weeks ago, he held his second annual iPod drive for Cross Keys Village, and collected 7 iPods, $130 in iTunes gift cards, a Bose speaker / charger station, 13 headphones… and an astounding $2,145 in monetary donations, all benefitting the Music & Memory program at Cross Keys Village.
Sam volunteered approximately 800 hours in the past year on memory care neighborhoods, and received his Music & Memory certification in February. The four-hour, in-depth certification training taught Sam how to develop personalized playlists for individual participants, the benefits of creating and maintaining a music library, how to ensure equipment security and cleanliness, ways to scale the program across the organization, ways to incorporate assessment tools to enhance the program and how to grow the program through promotional efforts.
If you have iPods, iTunes gift cards, headphones, and iPod chargers that you no longer need, please help us spread the music and find your equipment a good home. For more information or ways to help support the Music & Memory program, please contact Memory Care Coach Kim Korge by calling 717-624-5272 or emailing her at k.korge@crosskeysvillage.org.