Date of Service - April 22, 2011

Time spent - 5 hours 10am-3pm

Total hours - 35 hours

Action: Today, Katelyn was waiting in front of the front desk today, and told me to set up in the recreation room where the residents could assemble a puzzle. I expected the puzzle to be a regular square less than 500 piece puzzle, but the puzzle was of a background and the shape of a puzzle related to the puzzle picture (ie: a chicken shaped puzzle with the picture of a rural background. After I had set up the table and had laid out all the pieces to the puzzle, I realized she had also told me to set up tables for bingo. After the residents started pouring in to play a game of bingo, I decided to stay and call out the numbers. I could tell that the residents were really into bingo as they placed their money in order to bet who would win first. After seeing this, I asked Katelyn why they would need money, if everything in the retirement home is free, she told me that winning money helps improve their self-esteem and that sometimes they go on trips to the mall.

Next action: Next week I plan on doing something different, and help out the care givers after doing the errands Katelyn tell me to run.

How am I doing? The residents seem now to recognize me, they don't ask why I'm there and what I am doing, they just seem to know my name and that I am a volunteer. At first I would get a little irate after all the residents would ask the same questions about why I was there, my name, and what I was doing. At first, I thought that these questions would arise almost everyday, because of their aging minds, but to my surprise, after one day, most would remember the answers to the questions the day prior.