January 25, 2021

When it all began: COVID-19 and physical distancing

In March 2020, work began in earnest to pull together ideas, links, activities, and resources to assist affiliates and surrounding community members with life enrichment and engagement during a time of physical distancing and isolation because of COVID-19.

A group of staff and residents from across the Kendal System met on a regular basis beginning in April to discuss how to best gather, share, and disseminate resources and activities that would be helpful and of interest to others, while also housing them in a way that everyone could take advantage of them.

A lot of information, ideas, and resources were shared within a very short period and within a matter of a couple of weeks, the Life Enrichment and Engagement webpage was built and ready to launch.

On April 13, 2020, the first blog post went out to the Kendal System announcing the webpage’s launch and the inception of the Life Enrichment and Engagement blog/e-newsletter. Individuals were encouraged to share this new resource within and outside of Kendal.

The Life Enrichment and Engagement webpage contains content in six (6) main topic areas:

1. Wellness (Mind, Body, Soul) 
2. Connections (Social, Community) 
3. Intellectual (Education, Books and Creativity) 
4. Cultural (Arts, Theatre, Museums, Travel, Gardens) 
5. Activities & Entertainment 
6. Potpourri 

Posts topics have included things such as the benefits of dancing and pets in our lives, leaving a legacy through recipe sharing, links to various trivia questions, lots of online video content and educational classes and concerts, a Kendal resident’s experiences through a 6 ½ year travel journey, a performance by renowned pianist Malcom Bilson – a Kendal resident, the evolution of math, and the wonderful world of Dr. Seuss.

The work continues:

The work groups discussions and conversations have continued and evolved in to how Kendal Affiliates can better connect with other Kendal Affiliates and how we can better share the robust resources each Kendal Affiliate have to share while not being able to get together in person for programs and events. With that, “CollingtonPresents” was born and Collington shared several programs with the entire system. For example, “Is the Constitution Out of Date?”, “Living in Peculiar Times: COVID-19.” These programs, and others, are available for viewing on the Life Enrichment page.

Now here we are in 2021. COVID continues, but so does our resilience, our resolve, and our efforts to see that even though we are still not able to be in-person for programs or events, that we can still be together and lead enriching and engaged lives through finding new ways of connecting, by finding innovative ways to participate in activities, by continuing to look out for each other, and by generously sharing our gifts and inner light with others.

Hopes for the future:

We hope you continue to find the information and resources shared through this communication valuable and helpful during this ongoing challenging time, and even after COVID finally breaks its grip on us.

We also hope and encourage you to share the webpage with anyone you think would benefit from knowing of this resource and/or enjoy receiving an uplifting and interesting email on a weekly basis.

We hope that you stay well, that you reach out for help and ask for assistance when you need it, that you help someone when asked and that you share your gifts and light with others. But mostly, we hope that we can be together again soon, taking the lessons we’ve learned over the last year, and keeping the silver linings that have come from such an unprecedented time.

How to Share and Subscribe:

The best way to share this with others is NOT to forward this email. The best way to share this webpage with others is to copy the web-address https://www.kendal.org/enrichment/ and send it to them in a new email. Ask them to visit the webpage and to subscribe from there. When they land on the webpage, they will have the opportunity to “Sign Up Now” by entering their name and email address in the blue pop-up box that will appear in the lower right hand corner (see image below).