I'm creating a community for the elderly at my church & others, so that seniors can have new people & activities in their lives. Any ideas?

We had a dear woman who did this years back. When she moved, it all fell apart.

How she did it was we each picked a shutin from a list. For the next year we were to send cards for special occasions. Visit if we wanted. Give small gifts. After a year, we were asked to switch off. We had a Tea. If our "friend" could attend an invite was sent to him/her.

I lucked out because the woman I chose was the first secretary for the Visiting Nurse Assoc that I was secretary for. She worked in the 50s, I worked 50 years later. Learned a lot of history from her.

Lots of hobby type of classes (Rock painting, oil painting, simple arts and crafts), A dance for seniors with music that doesn't scare them, Wii bowling and exercises, simple exercise classes (Exercise is important when you get older), movie night (old classic movies), Ice cream socials, card parties and bingo parties, non alcoholic happy hours, gardening groups, Trips out to local restaurants (A lot of older people like to go to family style restaurants and have meals together), museums and local festivals, Being a mentor or adopted grandparent to a child in the community. Pet therapy would also be good for seniors, as well: Many seniors love animals. I volunteer on and off with a group that hosts bingo parties for the veterans (some of them are elderly) at the vets home.

You would have to look at asking a local bus company to devote time and resources to help seniors get to and from the activities. Many of them can't drive anymore.

You could bring in organizations that screen for glaucoma, or discuss other medical issues, host a classic movie night, hold classes (such as maximizing Internet use) bring in experts/lecturers, do some projects for the church (like planting). Seniors like doing things for children such as working with kids on basics (phonics?) or packing book bags for needy kids. You could introduce sessions where seniors read aloud to children.

Find out some of the special personal stories your seniors can tell. Do you have Veterans among your membership? Civilians who lived through wars? Honor them by asking them to stand in commemoration of Veterans Day. Plan an event where they can tell their stories.

Do you have members who attended one-room school houses or lived through other special historic circumstances or events? Maybe they had an ice box when they were young, or usually rode in a carriage. It is so interesting to learn about their lives.

You can hold special events that correlate to holidays - for Valentines Day celebrate those in the congregation that have been married 40 plus years and ask them to give their best hints for making love last. If they aren’t comfortable speaking in front of the congregation, publish their remarks in the bulletin. They will feel special. Host a Valentines dance where you play love songs from their youth. Even the widows and widowers will feel younger when their hear “their” songs.

In my area there are "senior diners" groups that meet for a meal and social time. What I've seen happening with these groups is that they are attended by all the more active people in the community - you know, the ones that are already attending every other event available. If your goal is to help those who are lonely you need to give some thought as to identifying them, overcoming the barriers that are causing their isolation and getting them there.

My experience was with my mother in law. An issue I saw was the difficulty of mixing people who really couldn’t participate much, with people who were lonely and wanted company. The lonely people found it quite depressing to be with the group who just sat. Really, some of them were only interested in the free meal. It got worse when the organisers decided to ‘integrate’ the meeting with very low IQ younger adults from a supported living organisation. The intention may have been good, but these younger adults were very noisy (shrieks and groans, which sounds dreadful but is accurate), and were also poorly co-ordinated and could be a danger to frail elderly people if they got up and moved around. The meeting had speakers, and my MIL quit when they had a speaker explaining dementia. She had been through it with FIL, and the whole thing upset her a lot. It’s quite hard to exclude people once you have set it up, so think about your ‘target group’ first. I hope that the recommended books help you to do it better, but knowing the pitfalls can help too. Very best wishes for something that is certainly worthwhile.

Internet cafe Bus trips to the casino (some older folks like to gamble). Senior Prom, Tea

Your initiative is certainly needed and could be quite rewarding--for you, for those who volunteer to help you, and for those who need help. However, You and your volunteers will need to do some work reading and understanding how to help those you wish to reach. I would start with Dr. Jennifer Bute's, "Dementia from the Inside: A Doctor's Personal Journey of Hope (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2018). Jennifer has a beautiful faith; and chapter 5, with a summary on p. 106 is outstanding. For specific activities look at James R. Dowling's "Keeping Busy: A Handbook of Activities for Persons with Dementia," as well as Karrie Marshall's "A Creative Toolkit for Communication in Dementia Care (Jessica Kingsley, 2016). These three books (readily available from Amazon or secondhand perhaps from www.abebooks.com) will give you a good start. Do make sure your pastor is on board and don't forget to educate him or her as well.

All the best, with my prayers.

We also have a community lunch. Everyone is invited and Church members are encouraged to mingle among the

I know I’ve said this before, but most of the suggestions you are getting are only suitable for older people who are still well and truly ‘with it’, and that is what you are aiming for as well. What are you going to do if people (or facilities!) decide that your little ‘community’ is a good free daycare option to take people who are definitely not ‘with it’, and park them with you to get them out for the morning? And believe me, it’s amazing how people rush to a free option. How can you keep this group out, if you aren’t aiming at them? If you take them, how can you keep up the ‘bright and breezy’ ‘fun’ options for the others? Changing the rules is difficult, particularly if it is going to upset an important facility, so think it through first.

First off, God bless you, Happy for contributing in such a lovely way to your church. Anyone can drop a check or cash in the collection and we should donate but but this is a gift from the heart, service, just as Jesus came to serve. To me this is a beautiful Christian act. Thank you.

Great suggestions, everyone!

Our senior citizen group at church does the typical dinners once a month as a social gathering in the banquet hall at church.

Recommendations are printed out for seniors with community activities such as reading books for our local radio station for our blind community. Some have been volunteering for years reading books.

We also have guest speakers come in to address seniors. I went to the ‘end of life’ planning which covered, hospice, living wills, burial or cremation arrangements, etc. It was very good. Very simple refreshments were served, coffee, soft drinks, cake and cookies.

One thing that a lot of seniors love are the special field trips, museums, an art gallery, a picnic at a local park, socializing in a new spot!

Not at my church but one near by has a community garden that seniors plant vegetables and they are distributed to low income families.

A bus is chartered and off they go! They appreciate it because not all seniors drive and they get to visit different places and do different things. It’s a nice change of pace for them, a special memory which is special because it’s experiences that they often crave and often means more than material things.