{"id":26258,"date":"2020-03-26T20:12:43","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T00:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26258"},"modified":"2020-03-26T20:12:50","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T00:12:50","slug":"seniors-centre-goes-virtual-to-continue-delivering-services-to-seniors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/seniors-centre-goes-virtual-to-continue-delivering-services-to-seniors\/","title":{"rendered":"Seniors\u2019 Centre goes virtual to continue delivering services to seniors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Aurora Seniors\u2019 Centre is not letting a facility\nclosure keep them from delivering important services to the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid Aurora\u2019s State of Emergency following the COVID-19\noutbreak, staff at the Seniors\u2019 Centre are doubling down on their Seniors\u2019\nCentre Without Walls service, an over-the-phone service intended to foster\nfellowship and reduce isolation felt by members of our community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeniors\u2019 Centre Without Walls is a telephone-based\nprogram where we can host people who can interact together on the phone and\nwe\u2019ll either do games, trivia and brain-stimulating activities \u2013 and we will do\nexercises and relaxation with them,\u201d says Karie Papillon, Adult Program\nCoordinator for the Aurora Seniors\u2019 Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Seniors\u2019 Centre Without Walls program has been in\nplace for nearly two years, but the importance of the service has only been\nunderscored in this current crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to The Auroran on St. Patrick\u2019s Day last week,\nMs. Papillon said they had a day on the phones built around all things Irish,\nbut such was the demand on service, the telephone infrastructure they had in\nplace at the time struggled to keep up with demand. In the days since, those\nproblems have now been rectified and it is smooth sailing as they ramp up to\nmeet the needs of the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt this point, we knew our members, being the most\nvulnerable, that there would be loneliness, so we decided to expand the\nprogramming from three days a week to five days a week,\u201d says Ms. Papillon.\n\u201cAfter the announcement we would be closed until April 6, we had to make sure\nwe would still be able to run the program. Today, our theme was just \u2018Fun and\nGames\u2019. I told some really bad jokes they all groaned at \u2013 I thought the jokes\nwere hilarious, but they groan at me a lot! \u2013 and then we played a really silly\ngame called \u2018Would You Rather?\u2019 because right now I think making people laugh\nis really important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Question of the Day? If you could have the power,\nwould you make unicorns real or would you make dragons real?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Posing the question to The Auroran, this writer thought\nthat dragons might be the more practical option, an opinion shared by Ms.\nPapillon, but apparently those who called into the Seniors\u2019 Centre Without\nWalls program were firmly Team Unicorn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI told them I could ride the dragon to work and not have\nto worry about commuting, which would be fantastic,\u201d said Ms. Papillon with a\nlaugh. \u201cThe idea yesterday was everyone is so keyed up and stressed right now,\nlet\u2019s make people laugh and let people be a bit silly. Our afternoon program\nwas Stretch & Relax, where one of our fitness instructors is going to take\nthem through some very simple chair exercises just to keep moving. A lot of\nthem are used to coming into the Centre every two to three days and doing their\nfitness classes or doing tai chi. You want to keep them moving, and then we\nhave a bit of guided relaxation at the end just to end people\u2019s day with a\nreally positive mindset before they go and turn the news back on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThankfully most of our clients have families who bring\nthem groceries and who are calling them. We have some calls yesterday from some\npeople who either were self-isolating or were just getting back from somewhere\nand were told they needed to isolate themselves. They were very worried about\ngetting their groceries and picking up their prescriptions. A few community\nmembers have come forward and we\u2019re trying to connect those people together.\nThe other thing they are worried about is if they are staying at home and just\nin front of the TV all day not getting their usual exercises in, what can they\ndo to move, stretch and just keep going so when they come back to their fitness\nclasses they haven\u2019t lost any of the strides they have made?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a very strong community on these calls now. They\nknow each other\u2019s voices. If Helen has been away for a few days and Helen comes\nback, they all want to know. \u2018Have you been okay? How\u2019s your husband?\u2019 and so\nforth. Building that community is really important and I think we just\nencourage anyone who feels that need to have some fun, not watch the news for a\nhalf hour or 45 minutes to join us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seniors Centre Without Walls programming changes each\nweek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two calls will take place each weekday. On Wednesday,\nMarch 25, the 10.15 a.m. call will be dedicated to \u201cStretch & Relax\u201d with\nthe 3.15 p.m. call based around the \u201cFun & Games\u201d theme. \u201cShort Stories\u201d\nkicks off the March 26 calls at 10.15 a.m., with the \u201cStretch and Relax\u201d ending\nthe afternoon at 3.15. Callers can pick up \u201cStretch and Relax\u201d on March 27 at\n10.15, with Fun & Games slated for 3.15 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust call in with a sense of humour because we have a\nlot of fun and laugh,\u201d says Ms. Papillon. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to participate, just\nhave a willingness to try to participate. We have some people who just want to\nlisten, and that\u2019s fine, but be willing to say hello. We\u2019re always looking for\npeople to help us with program research right now. We\u2019re trying to expand our\nprogramming and if anyone has a keen trivia mind and is able to shoot us some\nstories or fun trivia questions, we would really appreciate that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on Seniors\u2019 Centre Without Walls, call 905-727-3123 x3614 or email scww@aurora.ca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aurora Seniors\u2019 Centre is not letting a facility closure keep them from delivering important services to the community. Amid Aurora\u2019s State of Emergency following the COVID-19 outbreak, staff at the Seniors\u2019 Centre are doubling down on their Seniors\u2019 Centre Without Walls service, an over-the-phone service intended to foster fellowship and reduce isolation felt by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/2020-03-26-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Pw","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 21:29:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}