The Birches At Concord Hosts The Longest Day Of The Year Art Sale
This article, written by Tony Schinella, was published on June 20, 2019, by Concord Patch.
The Birches At Concord will be celebrating the 2019 Summer Solstice on Friday with a fundraiser for the Alzheimer’s Association called the Longest Day Of The Year Art Sale. Residents at the senior living facility – many with memory loss, dementia, and Alzheimer’s – are displaying the art to show how art therapy can help those with the disease. Some of the artwork was created by residents who are more than 100-years-old.
Karolyn McCauley, the program coordinator for the facility, stated the Birches is an assisted-living facility for people with memory impairment. A minimum of $5 per piece will be requested. For a few weeks now, she has been working with the residents to understand why they were working on the art pieces and what they would be used for.
“We anticipate mostly family members coming to buy (the artwork),” she said. “We really don’t have a goal. We’re letting families decide what they would like to contribute; what they feel it is worth. But it’s just a way for us to give back to the Alzheimer’s Association.”
Each of them has different abilities with the art forms. They all had different goals and used photos as a guide or model to work with, when creating their artwork, she said.
“They were excited to be a part of this,” McCauley added.
Chuck Crush, the executive director of the facility, said the residents are all at a different part of their journey dealing with memory loss and dementia and offer different abilities. Residents at the beginning of their journey were able to do a little bit more than others. McCauley, Crush added, did a great job separating each art form for the residents and encouraging them to be creative.
“We’re lucky to have Karolyn,” Crush said.
Crush added that facility had partnered with the Alzheimer’s Association on other things in the past like its annual walk. McCauley said the initiative was also a corporate endeavor promoted by Benchmark, the Birches’ parent company.
The facility posted some of the seniors working on their artwork on its Facebook page.
The Birches at Concord
