The Issue/Community Need:

Senior isolation and loneliness is a serious issue in retirement homes around the country. Senior citizens can find themselves feeling lost in an unfamiliar place without support from family and friends when put in retirement and assisted living homes. The cause of this loneliness could be due to the loss of a spouse/family member, an illness such as dementia, or simply separation from life as they used to know it.

Community Partnership:

We established a community partnerships with The Residence at Valley Farms, the brand-new assisted living center in Ashland. We worked with the events coordinator, Jenn, to collaborate and form long-lasting bonds between Holliston High School students and elderly residents through activities and events we lead and participated in at the Residence.

Plan of Action:

1. Call assisted living and retirement homes to ask if we can perform at their establishment
2. If they say yes, we would then need to ask what sort of music we could play (electric versus acoustic), schedule our performance and events for us to participate in etc.
3. Come and participate in an activity with the residents and spend some time meeting them, getting to know them, and talking to them, recording videos and taking pictures for documentation
4. Go to the Coffeehouse and promote our cause while also supporting the jam band, who is collaborating with us to perform at the assisted living center
5. Return to the assisted living center and have the band perform for them, recording and photographing for documentation
6. Return and conduct interviews with the residents who volunteer to be interviewed, and record and audio record the interviews
7. Collect all the photos, videos, and interviews into one comprehensive video presentation to show to the class

What we have learned thus far:

• How to reach out and coordinate meetings with businesses
• Getting in touch with businesses is harder than expected
• One of the most important aspects of planning events is having a clear schedule prepared
• How to work to create a good graphic design for the group logo
• How important it is to design an expressive, creative logo that represents our project well
• How to set reasonable goals to keep ourselves on track
• How to self-manage and effectively use and manage our time
• All the elements that go into coordinating an event