For Anntawn Green, the life enrichment director at Shem Creek Health Center at South Bay at Mount Pleasant, an assisted living and memory care community in Mt. Pleasant, SC. service is a major part of her identity.
Outside of work, she delivers meals to feed homeless Charleston residents every week through a program called Potluck in the Park. After sharing her volunteer experience with her residents, they decided they wanted to chip in a sweet contribution to the meals.
“In general conversation, we were talking about what they used to do,” Green said. “I told about my Girl Scout career and different things like that, and they were like, ‘What do you do now in your spare time? And I said, every other Sunday, I go downtown and I see the homeless here. They say, ‘My God, I would love to do that!’ ‘Instead of you going down there,’ I said, ‘we could bake cookies and baked goods for them.’ Everyone at the table is like, ‘That would be great!’”
Twice a month, Green and the residents whip up delicious chocolate chip cookies in the senior living community’s kitchen as a dessert for the potluck meals in the park. Because doctors, paramedics, firefighters and other former service professionals are among the residents, Green believes the baking sessions provide them with the same sense of purpose that motivated their careers before they moved to Shem Creek.
“It gives them a sense of doing something for their community,” she said. “It gives them a feeling like, ‘I’m helping. I’m actually participating,’ because some residents, once they get here, they think, ‘OK, this is it. I’m done. There’s nothing else I can do.’ I give them that sense that life doesn’t stop because you’re here.”
Alongside the sense of fulfillment it creates, the baking sessions also are an opportunity for residents to get to know their neighbors while keeping their communities sharp. Sometimes, having an excuse to get out of the room is all it takes to find a new friend, Green said.
“They start to get to know each other and sit at the same table more and come out of their rooms more,” she said. “For memory care, it is a good cognitive and sensory experience. If you don’t use it, you’re going to lose it.”
Green continues to participate in Potluck in the Park every week and notes that the individuals to whom she serves meals are very grateful for the homemade sweets. To her, the sous chefs in her bakery are more than just residents; they are family.
“It gives me a sense of purpose that I wake up every day knowing that I’m going to my second home,” Green said. “I’m making these people feel happy. I’m being their family when their family cannot be here.”
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