THIS BROKE MY HEART
In 2014, I began “The Senior Significance Project.” In memory of my mother’s legacy, I vowed that every year, I would go back to the nursing home to visit the patients to ensure they knew they were significant.
There came a time when I could no longer take care of my mom while juggling a full-time job, raising our two boys, and being a wife. To date, it was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, but it became time to find a nursing home to take care of her.
That experience changed me deeply. If you have ever visited a loved one in a nursing home, you will know what I mean. The facility was full of many elderly people there for end-of-life care. The hardest part of this reality was that most of these beautiful souls no longer had anyone come to visit them.
Throughout the duration of visiting my mom, I also fell in love with so many other patients.
Many birthdays and holidays would come, and they would sit alone without family or visitors. It was heartbreaking to say the very least. That was when I made it my quest to sit and spend time with these lonely residents. I could see how much they truly enjoyed just having company when I stopped in their rooms to say hello.
They never asked for anything materialistic – EVER. They just wanted to know that they had meaning and were significant in some way.
That experience sparked something inside of me and I decided to do something about it.
I started a small wish list of what they needed for quality of life that would be shared with me by the staff. From there, my family and I would gather donations for them from friends and family to bring to them during the holiday week.
Five years later in 2019, I picked up my first corporate sponsor – Healthy Partners. Through their support, The Senior Significance Project grew from a small wish list to large truckloads of donations and enthusiastic volunteers coming together annually to visit Alzheimer’s patients during the holiday.
Keeping seniors as a significant part of life is part of my broader mission to give back. I look forward to celebrating more of them each year in memory of my mom.
I lost my mom to Dementia that year. I was an only child and for her final three years served as the sole caretaker for my mother. She worked so hard to give me so much in my life, it had become my time to be the “mom” to her. Through the journey of dealing with her dementia, I learned plenty about what was most important in life. I began to see things through a very different lens. This was what we refer to as a silver lining of sorts.
It will be 9 years now that the Senior Significance Project has been going and I look forward to seeing more smiles this year as we bring their wish lists to life.
If you or your company would like to be involved, we would love to have you join us for 2023.
Our kick off call to share more about this year’s Senior Significance Project will take place at 8am Est on October 20th on Zoom: Coffee with Kelly- Senior Significance Project 2023 Kick Off Party! Tickets, Fri, Oct 20, 2023 at 8:00 AM | Eventbrite.
