The Wartburg Adult Care Community in Mount Vernon has been honored as an eldercare innovator for its Council for Creative Aging program.
LeadingAge New York, a nonprofit association of eldercare providers that advocates in Albany for aging and continuing care services, in June awarded its 2012 Innovation of the Year Award to Wartburg officials.
Accepting the award, Wartburg President and CEO David Gentner called the Council for Creative Aging “an example of a new and innovative program that sparks the creativity in the elderly and ignites a fire within them that makes them feel vibrant and alive.”
The Wartburg program was started in 2010 in partnership with the National Center for Creative Aging in Washington, D.C., an organization founded in 2001 to foster an understanding of the vital relationship between creative expression and healthy aging and to develop programs that build on that. The Mount Vernon council hosts a variety of art groups that meet at least weekly in eight-week sessions. It serves about 450 senior citizens annually, according to the Wartburg website.
When designing the program, Wartburg officials followed suggestions from staff at Lifetime Arts Inc., a nonprofit in New Rochelle that promotes the inclusion of professional arts programs in organizations serving older adults.
“Creativity actually grows with age,” said Ann Frey, director of volunteers at Wartburg, who spearheaded the private nursing home”™s partnership with the National Center for Creative Aging. “Our program provides opportunities to draw and sing and write ”¦ things that our residents never quite had enough time for when they were younger.”
Gentner said he hoped that “other organizations and facilities around the state and the country will use our program as a model and institute this same structure and spirit into their everyday lives.”
The Wartburg Adult Care Community is a nonprofit Lutheran ministry that provides a range of residential options and health-related services for older adults and their families in the area. US News &World Report for the second consecutive year has placed Wartburg on its list of Best 100 Nursing Homes in the country.
