My Service Learning Experience at Assisted Living at Evergreen

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My Service Learning Experience atAssisted
Living at Evergreen

• By Shaina Kuhn

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• At Assisted Living at Evergreen, I was given the
  opportunity to work with Maria, their activities
  coordinator, and help her with activities and
  decorations of the home. This really gave me the
  chance to get to interact with the residents and
  make their home look nice.
• I have learned many skills and valuable lessons
  from this service learning experience. I have
  learned that the smallest thing you do for
  someone can mean a great deal to them such as how
  a simple painting of fingernails can be greatly
  appreciated for people who cant do it
  themselves.
• I have learned to follow directions better,
  practiced doing crafts, decorating, and painting.
  After conducting some research for this courses
  assignments, I came to find that doing these
  decorations and crafts all make a positive
  influence on the residents as well as getting
  them to do activities. One study showed that an
  activity program they conducted reduced
  institutional barriers to participation in
  pleasant activities, increased resident control
  over activity participation, increased overall
  activity participation, and improved depressive
  symptoms (Meeks).

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Some of the activities I got to help with for the
residents included chair exercises, bingo,
painting the ladies fingernails, and decorating
the Christmas tree.
Chair Exercises
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Bingo
Decorating the Christmas Tree
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• I have learned a great deal about myself from
  this experience. I have volunteered before, but
  this experience let me know first hand the
  difference that I can make in peoples lives.
  Just being positive and in good spirits can make
  anothers life happier and better. Another study
  I found conducted research on older adults to
  find if happiness and humor could promote life
  satisfaction and it showed that there was
  significant improvement in their life
  satisfaction and shows that the participants
  outlook changed significantly as a result of just
  participating in the program (Mathieu)
• This course surprised me by the fact that I
  really enjoyed it. I thought I was going to come
  into this experience trying to hurry up and get
  my hours done and I came to find that I loved
  being there and loved doing things for the
  residents. They all were just so appreciative of
  what Maria and I were doing it just made it that
  much more gratifying.

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• With my newfound knowledge of caring and peoples
  appreciation for acts of kindness, I will try to
  incorporate it into my everyday life as well as
  in situations or other volunteering experiences.
• My experience at Evergreen will be beneficial in
  my future endeavors because I will always
  remember my experience there. Knowing that the
  little bit I did to decorate their home and
  helping them with activities made their lives
  better and happier makes me want to always try to
  have that affect on people no matter what the
  situation is.

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Progression of my painting

• One thing that I am particularly proud of is the
  Christmas scene picture I painted for the
  residents that will be hung up on the wall for
  all to see.

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Finished Product
I am particularly proud of this picture because I
worked so hard on it and it can be hung on the
wall so they can remember me by it. I am also
proud of it because I feel like it is something
they can look at and it could possibly bring them
happiness and put them in the Christmas Spirit.
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• Some experiences that I had that related to my
  academic readings and coursework were that I
  experienced along with the researched students
  who were involved in civic engagement, that I too
  enjoyed and felt like I learned more from it than
  traditional learning. I also experienced that I
  had more interest in going to do my service
  learning than I have in going to regular class
  like they were too.
• After I completed my assignments, I simply tried
  to incorporate the knowledge that I gained from
  them in my experiences to better the residents
  experience, such as being positive and humorous
  when I talked to them.
• I also had a first hand experience in hearing the
  joy and appreciation that our decorations of
  their home brought to them. They simply just kept
  making sure we knew how nice everything looked
  and what a good job we did and that they really
  enjoyed them.

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• My other college courses were useful to me during
  this experience by giving me a background on the
  age group that I was working with and with what
  the nurses were doing.
• I am currently taking psychology 241, Intro to
  Human Development, and this really let me know
  what the residents were experiencing and what
  normally happens throughout their age period. It
  covers every aspect of their lives such as
  psychosocial, physical, and cognitive development
  so I really knew what to expect and see from
  them.
• In my nursing course we are getting a general
  view of what a nurses job entails and all of the
  knowledge that they need to gain over their
  schooling to be a great nurse. This was useful in
  getting to see first hand nurses at work and
  having an idea of what they were doing and trying
  to accomplish.

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• One of my big projects on site was to make
  angels. Maria came up with the idea to have each
  angel to represent each resident and for people
  to adopt an angel. She went around and asked all
  of the resident what the wanted for Christmas,
  typed it up, and I glued it on the angels
  dresses. When we decorated the Christmas tree the
  residents got to place all of the angels on it.
  When someone decides to adopt an angel, all they
  have to do is take on from the tree, get some of
  the items listed for presents, and bring it back
  with them as part of the residents present so
  they each will get an angel.

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• Another project I worked on besides just
  decorating their home was making snowflakes,
  holly, and birds out of paper to decorate their
  tree. The tree is painted on the wall and they
  decorate it according to the changing seasons for
  the residents to enjoy. We changed it from
  fabulous fall to wonderful winter.

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Finished Decorations

• Overall, I learned a lot, had a great experience,
  and really enjoyed my time at Assisted Living at
  Evergreen. I really enjoyed getting to do things
  for the residents and doing their activities with
  them. I definitely enjoy service learning and
  think it should be brought into more aspects of
  college courses.