Woodland Care Center preps for holiday season activities

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The Woodland Care Center has brought back its Red Hat Tea Party after a yearlong hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Activity Director Joanna Gennick said the group has been busy with various fundraisers that include tea and yogurt sales, as well as crocheting. 

“It’s laid out in fine china and linen, and they dress in their hats,” Gennick of the tea party. “We do fundraisers for different things in the facility, and so they become very involved in the facility life by helping out.”

She said this year, the Red Hat Club is purchasing presents for every resident in the facility for Christmas. 

“They’ve made that amount of money to where they’re able to purchase gifts for everybody in the facility, which is pretty amazing when you talk about little women in the facility doing fundraisers,” she said.

Besides the gifts, the proceeds of the fundraisers, as well as resident council funds, will go toward a projector, a pull-down screen, and a sound bar so people can watch movies in the dining room.

“We have meetings of the minute, where everybody votes on what they want to do, and it’s quite the to-do list, but they really enjoy it,” Gennick said. “The meetings are where we talk about things we want to do for fundraisers. They call themselves ‘The Do-Gooders of Woodland Care Center.’”

The Red Hat residents were able to raise around $500 once the COVID-19 lockdown in the facility ended. The group, which included 13 members prior to the pandemic, now has 10 members. Last week, they bought doughnuts and cookies for people. 

“It’s just little things they always do for everybody,” Gennick said. “They’re a good group of ladies.”



Gennick said participants in the group enjoy their work because it brings extra meaning to their lives. 

Aside from the Red Hat club, the other residents have also kept busy by taking part in arts and crafts, which involved decorating four Christmas trees and stringing up popcorn and cranberries. The Woodland Care Center also has a book club, game day, bible study, an ice cream social, and of course, bingo. Gennick said the residents also enjoy trivia. Every evening, the center hosts a puzzle club, which Gennick said is popular among the residents. This year, they will also perform a special Christmas musical. 

“I keep telling them, ‘Make sure you sing real loud, because we have to wear our masks,’” she joked.

In terms of music, Gennick highlighted the Fargher Lake Boys, who are a local band that comes to the home periodically. She said it can be hard to find groups to perform because they are required to be fully vaccinated. 

To keep the residents more engaged with the internal operations of the home, the center holds resident council and food committee meetings once a month.

The Red Hat Tea Party is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Dec. 15. Visitors must be masked and fully vaccinated.