There’s plenty to do at Valley View Village Assisted Living. Tenants participate in many activities, campuswide events and bus outings.
They enjoy a variety of crafts, exercises, trivia, cribbage and other table games, Wheel of Fortune, Travelogue, Wii bowling, Men’s Group, sing-alongs, chapel, Bible studies, movies, theme parties, birthday dinners and monthly tenant meetings.
Campuswide events at Valley View Village include tailgate picnics; Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Veterans Day events; musical entertainment; ice cream socials; and fundraising events.
Bus outings take tenants to restaurants and stores like Dollar Tree, Walmart and Hy-Vee.
Tenants get to choose their activities. Most feedback for events and activities are is positive. If not, activities staff make changes that tenants will enjoy. For example, after trying Jeopardy style trivia, the residents said they would prefer it to take place monthly, with the regular trivia format the other weeks.
“Here at the Village Assisted Living, we are a tenant-driven activity department, and we try to center our activities around things that they like to do and enjoy,” Dawn says.
Each month has a different theme for activities. In September, tenants celebrated Assisted Living Week by making cards to send to family and friends. They also gave birthday cards and donated funds to distribute to nursing home residents for their birthdays. Such activities give residents purpose.
Tenants also pick the restaurants and shopping destinations for outings. Each month, they select a different restaurant.
Activities, events and outings all contribute to the tenants’ experience and overall quality of life.
“The tenants that enjoy attending events and activities state that it gives them something to look forward to and increases their quality of life,” Valley View Village activity director Dawn Agan says. “They enjoy the socializing aspect and they like to learn new things. Many of the tenants like to help with activities, which gives them purpose and they like that aspect of participating.”
