Enhancing the Lives of Nursing Home Residents One Volunteer at a Time
Today I’m sharing a beautiful example of people having fun at work. It involves a video produced by a group of residents and staff at the Golden Life senior living community in Canada. Check out this great spoof on Pharrell Williams’ version of the song “Happy.” You can’t possibly watch this video and stay in a foul mood!
Animals have been living at our nursing home for many years. Our littlest residents included dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, gerbils, fish, and even chinchillas. A group of employees and volunteers care for each type of animal. Several years ago, I was on the rabbit team. We made sure the two bunnies had food & water, brought them outside to play, and cleaned their cages.
One of our residents (I’ll call her Mary) grew very fond of one rabbit (I’ll call him Charlie). Mary’s room was right across the hall from Charlie’s cage. She spent many hours talking to him, petting him, and feeding him treats. Whenever I cleaned Charlie’s cage, Mary always appeared out of nowhere to supervise and to make sure I did everything correctly.
I love to watch TED Talks. If you’re not familiar with TED Talks, they’re videos of brief talks presented at TED (technology, entertainment, design) conferences in locations around the world.
TED Talks cover just about any topic you can imagine, and they tend to be very positive and inspiring. Sometimes when the TV news becomes too negative and discouraging, I’ll tune in to one of these talks instead.
If you ever hesitate to do an act of kindness because you don’t think your little action will make a difference, then you need to watch this TED Talk. It’s a story from a volunteer firefighter named Mark Bezos. Let me know what you think in the comment section!