The Mother of Invention
Last month in this column we described how Cross Keys Village adapted quickly to the stay-at-home orders and to the visiting restrictions that were put in place to limit the spread of coronavirus. As we write these lines, we are pleased to share that there hasn’t been a confirmed case of COVID-19 among the residents nor among the team at Cross Keys Village. This fortunate situation could change overnight, as we saw in some of the best communities in the Lancaster area. But we have a strong system of isolation in place if there should be a case on our campus. As we wrote last month, we are prepared.
Although it is a long-accepted generalization that older adults are averse to change, we must underline that our whole population – villagers, Memory Care, Personal Care and Health Care residents – has adapted with grace and ingenuity to the unimaginable changes in almost all aspects of daily life. Sure, they are frustrated with the limitations that have been imposed on them in such quick succession, but we have heard and seen little sign of anger or discouragement. To the contrary, we have received many heartfelt notes thanking us for the measures, some of them burdensome, that we have implemented for everyone’s safety.
Our team has been another source of pride and awe. Call-offs have been few, and the morale has remained positive even as masks covered up smiles. In Personal Care in particular, an impressive effort by the team to keep residents engaged with their families has seen beautiful results – and some photos that melted our hearts. The greater community has manifested its solidarity in concrete ways: volunteers near and far labor intensively to deliver vast quantities of fabric-masks, and children keep sending cards that lift the spirits of our elders when they read them.
It had long been a goal of our Director of Life Enrichment to have some of our lifelong learning material available remotely for villagers with limited mobility or with unusual scheduling preferences. Necessity is the mother of invention, as we know, and the need to offer relevant homemade material to our villagers on a virtual platform became a necessity all of a sudden. Our new Wellness on demand video library was started a few days ago, and we are offering our Sunday Services on Channel 25 and on demand as well. Along the same lines, our sales team has put together a virtual appointment page designed to help with the “research” process while tours cannot be scheduled. It will be interesting, years from now, to see how many of those innovations become permanent features of our world.