By: Madison Houser
For many people, the pandemic hit hard. For seniors, however, isolation was even more difficult.
In the spring of 2020, the Parkland College Occupational Therapy Assistants Program stepped up to make a change. In collaboration with the Senior Resource Center of Champaign County Family Services, the OTA program created “ENGAGE Activity Boxes” to deliver to local seniors.
Michelle Roberts, Parkland College OTA Program Director, said, “The goal is to improve engagement in activities and increase socialization.”
Each activity box has a theme. Every activity and item placed inside the box goes along with the topic. Roberts said, “We dream up what should be in each box, research what songs would be appropriate for that age group and come up with all the exercises they can do.”
The ENGAGE Activity Boxes are beneficial in many ways. They all feature several arts, crafts, and sensory experiences. The main objective of these boxes is to get recipients moving and active.
Roberts said, “We get local seniors moving with exercises and music and provide cognitive activities and art activities to really bring out their artistic-creative side. There is truly something in there for everybody.”
Roberts says perhaps one of the most powerful things about the boxes is not the boxes themselves, but the conversations between local seniors and Parkland OTA students. She said, “Each week, our OTA students call the seniors to talk about their boxes and get in some interaction that way. You know, you don’t know how many people maybe don’t have a lot of people to talk to, and so having someone to talk to every week about their life and these boxes is very powerful.”
Although getting ENGAGE Activity Boxes started wasn’t easy, the Parkland College community continuously steps up to help. Clubs and student organizations all around campus, such as the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society and the Prospectus newspaper, have volunteered their time to put together new ENGAGE Activity Boxes each week.
“I am so grateful we got this idea off the ground, but it takes a village. It wasn’t an easy process, you know; we developed the idea, came up with different things to put in each box, we completely revised things as we went along, and then we had to try find help putting them together because we don’t have enough people on our own,” said Roberts. “It’s just a beautiful thing that this village of caring people is out here helping our local seniors.”
