Arbor Terrace residents don't have to leave their home to learn about art, history, or a new language. Anne Pagnoni, Community Sales Director at Arbor Terrace of Middletown, joins us to discuss the different types of educational opportunities available within our communities. Just one of the many ways we keep residents engaged!
- Hello everyone. And welcome into Senior Living Live. My name is Melissa. Thank you so much for joining us today. In this episode we are going to discuss continuing education in senior living. So many great opportunities to learn about history, about art, perhaps a new language, that is something many of our Arbor residents are able able to do on a daily basis. And guess what? They don't even have to leave the community. Anne Pagnoni is with me now to talk about some of these opportunities. Anne, how are you doing today?
- Good. How are you?
- I am doing wonderful. I know we just discussed weather. You're in New Jersey, I'm in Atlanta. I think we both got a little bit of a dreary day
- Yeah. Outside today. Warm, but dreary. So first and foremost, before we begin diving into our topic today on continuing education. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
- Thank you. So again, as you mentioned my name is Anne Pagnoni. I've been working within the senior living industry for almost 25 years. I really started working with older adults when I was in college and it's just really kind of continued throughout to my point, even where I'm at right now. So I've worked in a variety of independent assisted living, memory care, long term care communities. So I definitely have a good idea of all of the services that are out there for older adults and for their families who are supporting them.
- Yeah. A lot of experience. And as you know, people always, there are some people I should say, not everybody but some people who continue to wanna learn at any age.
- Yes.
- And I think that is fantastic. I love that. That's why we're having this conversation. And we actually did a segment not too long ago with Emory University here in Atlanta, about continuing education for seniors. Many can go to university for free depending on where they live. And I know that many people that don't even know that those opportunities exist or that they even exist at these senior living communities. So can you tell us a little bit about some of the different kinds of education opportunities that are provided at Arbor Communities?
- Absolutely. I can tell you that in our community specifically, there's, I mean there's definitely a lot of opportunity to learn new languages as you had mentioned. History programs are big. We like to bring in people who've experienced different things that have happened over history and have them come in and do kind of educational talks on those for our residents. But in addition to that too, I mean, there's opportunities for, we had a horticulturalist come in, and actually really work with the residents and teach them about how to plant and how to care for their plants. So it was just kind of like a nice whole program just centered around something like that they enjoy doing. Art program. That's another thing. I cannot tell you how many people that I have met who learned how to paint, way after the time that they had retired. I mean, and they paint
- Wow.
- Some beautiful things. So there's a lot of opportunity like that too. So, and whenever we talk continuing education, I always think of those things too, because they are really kind of learning new things and how to do it. But again, like some of those history programs, different people will come in. Even locally, our bus will take residents out to different places. We have Brookdale Community College, which is local to our campus or to Arbor where we are. And we can go out and participate in programs that they have. Also with our location, we have the Monmouth Mall has a program called the Senior Citizens Activities Network. And they also do a lot of programs through Brookdale Community College. They have different professionals who will come in and they'll do learning programs. So our residents, we can take them, and they can participate and all of those activities, and all of those educational offerings as well. Book clubs, those are other things that I see, meet the author or just kind of just talking through different ideas or perceptions of the books. All of those things are things that do take place in our communities every day.
- Yeah. I mean, it's dizzying all the opportunities that you just explained now. And listening to all this, you know, I'm thinking about cost, right? I'm thinking, okay, well that would be an arm and a leg, and if you add that, you know, the horticulture you know, trying to learn how to garden, you know,
- Right.
- All of these things add up in terms of cost, but all all of these opportunities that you mentioned, they didn't cost anything, did they?
- No, they didn't. Nope. Those are all just some of the engagement programs that we offer our residents. And, you know, there's also other opportunity too. Like we have a group of ladies who decided they all wanna learn how to play Bridge. So we're actually putting that together right here in our community. And those are things that we see all the time as new people move into our communities, they all have different ideas about things that they wanna do or things that they've enjoyed doing, and they really bring all of those ideas to our teams and then our teams work to really make that happen. Again through the different educational opportunities.
- Yeah. So already we're talking about feedback, right? You were given feedback, these ladies wanted to learn how to play Bridge. So they come to you, you put it together and it happens.
- Yes.
- So you get that feedback of things that people perhaps are interested in and what they like to do. And I know all of Arbor Communities take that feedback very seriously, from their residents. They want them to be happy.
- Yes.
- They want them to continue to learn if that effort is there on their end. But what is the feed you've received from people who maybe attended a program that they weren't so sure about and then came back and said, "Man, that was awesome."
- That's always the greatest thing. Is when you see people who have not done something before or perhaps they've maybe had a little interest in but they weren't really sure. And then they go and they do it and they love it. I mean, that's always the best, that's the best. And I think we really want our residents to be able to take advantage of all these different programs that we have. So that feedback it it's just, it's great. I know, for me personally, it feels so good to know that you've made such a positive impact just through that program that the residents have participated in.
- Yeah. So if you're currently living in an Arbor Community and you're watching this and we have quite a few of you out there, hello, Thanks for watching us every week. If you're out there and you have an interest go talk to your engagement director.
- Absolutely.
- Talk to somebody in the sales department, talk to your executive director. There are so many people there that are happy to take those requests from you, and happy to make that come to fruition. So please do that.
- Right.
- Now, finally, you know, continuing education like I said, maybe it's not for everybody, but for those who want to continue to learn, they have a curiosity about them. Why is it important?
- I think it's important because we're always trying to learn new things, like every day and people can learn new things. And if you, perhaps, when we were younger, and were, you know, working and raising our children there were things that our residents weren't able to do. Things that they really wanted to do. And they now have a little more leisure time where they can really take advantage of that time and do something, focus on something that they wanna try. And that's so important. I mean, we really strive at Arbor to keep our residents engaged and to really provide them with a fulfilling lifestyle and those sorts of things, to take somebody who Is always wanted to learn something, maybe they weren't sure where to start or how to go about it, we like to do that. And it's important for them to help them remain engaged.
- Yeah. Staying engaged is important. When you stay engaged especially with something new that you're learning, you're engaging your mind and keeping it sharper.
- Absolutely. Yeah.
- And that is incredibly important at any age. But especially for seniors. We want them--
- Melissa, I have to tell you, I was walking past our activity area the other day and there is a group of residents and they're all sitting there and they're playing Wordle. They're doing Wordle together. I was like, "Oh my gosh."
- Of course they are. So right now Wordle is very popular. But you know what? Someone is probably gonna watch this video a year from now and say, "I kind of remember Wordle." You know, these things come and they go, but I love that our seniors are in the moment, they're in with all the hot
- Absolutely.
- New stuff that is coming out and Wordle happens to be the newest, the latest and greatest.
- All the way.
- So that is awesome.
- Yeah. I loved that. When I saw that, I was like, "Oh my gosh." I'm like, "This is awesome."
- Keep it up, guys. Keep it up. Well, Anne, Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us. And I hope that, you know, this can, you know, give a little bit more information of pulling back that curtain of senior living and what it's all about. This is just one small piece
- Thank you.
- Of what it is to live in a senior living community. One with the Arbor Company.
- Thank you.
- If you have an idea, something you wanna learn, let us know we're happy to help. So Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us today.
- Thank you.
- Thank you. Now, if you have enjoyed this episode with Anne, you can certainly go over to www.seniorliving.com and binge watch all the rest of our videos. All about senior living. They are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As always we appreciate you all tuning in to Senior Living Live, have a great day, everybody.