Photo by Tyler Nelson
Kids Impact Community launched "Lawn of Love" at Eastcastle Place senior living center.
Kids Impact Community (KIC) installed a pop-up display to bring joy to residents at Eastcastle Palace (2505 E. Bradford Ave.) on Thursday morning. Participating families also decorated the sidewalk and circle drive with inspirational messages and drawings around the front entrance.
An impromptu, group “Happy Birthday” singalong took place as one of the residents celebrating her 90th birthday stopped outside to see what was going on.
Lynn Raines, Co-Founder and Executive Director of KIC, believes the multi-generational human connection is most important when residents cannot be in close contact with the ones they love. The group also puts together and delivers care kits for caregivers and are currently running a virtual food drive through the Riverwest Food Pantry, along with curating the KIC Rocks Scavenger Hunt. Instilling a service-mentality mindset early in the children is a goal of the organization.
“The kids get a lot out of it, too,” says Laura Wengler, Director of Community Life for Eastcastle Place. Wengler notices the boost the children get when they brighten the day of residents.
KIC would usually come out to Eastcastle Place for arts and crafts events or to sing songs in the courtyard with residents in the courtyard on a monthly basis. Those activities were regular staples before COVID-19 shut public activities down for residents of the senior living center. That doesn’t stop KIC from doing whatever they can to lift the community and share the love.
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KIC is committed to instilling the belief in children that they are responsible for and capable of being dynamic and change-making citizens within their community. During the coronavirus pandemic, nursing homes, assisted living facilities and senior centers have ended visitation and shuttered nearly all of the gathering places for older adults across the country. Though the efforts are necessary to protect the residents from the virus, the isolation has a devastating effect on the population who already face an increased risk for loneliness.
