Welcome New Beginnings: January Events

Welcome to 2015! What a wonderful time for us to reflect on the past year and forge ahead with new beginnings. January is a time for change when we make and sometimes break our New Year’s resolutions and focus on what we want to make better in the coming year.

January is also the month that Juniper Village begins our Winter Alive In All Seasons theme of Creative Expressions: “Explore Your Creativity” where in January we will focus on music! Research shows that music can help us physically by easing pain, helping us sleep better, eat less and enhance our blood vessel function. It is also suggested that music can help us mentally by reducing stress, relieving symptoms of depression, elevating mood, decreasing anxiety and improving cognitive performance. Hospitals are using music to help cancer patients manage stress and anxiety and to ease recovery in stroke patients.

Our fabulous activity offerings this month include our “Disco Fever” Family Luncheon as Let’s Dance under the disco ball for a Funkytown lunch so put on your platform shoes and Boogie On Down on January 14^th at noon; our Musical Afternoon with Curt Smythe a local entertainer who will be playing fun and entertaining songs that we all know and love on his guitar on January 20^th at 2:30; our Music: The Magic Healer educational session featuring Jessica Mull, certified music therapist, who will provide insight into the impact of music therapy for seniors with dementia as we discuss our implementation of Music and Memory while viewing short videos of success stories with our residents and conduct an iPod and MP3 player donation drive for musical tools to utilize throughout the community on January 21^st at 3:30 pm; our Music Appreciation with Daniel G. Klimoski event featuring him playing the Saxophone, Flute, and Clarinet as well as a sing-a-long while playing the keyboard on January 22^nd at 2:30 pm; our Alive Inside Screening of the inspirational and emotional film dramatically portraying the power of music and memory that left the audience humming and cheering at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival where it won the Audience Award on January 22^nd at 6:30 pm; or our Virtual Dementia Tour and Create Your Playlist Event an interactive, experiential journey into the realities of dementia that allows you to “walk in the shoes” of your loved one, enabling you to better understand their needs and behaviors, at the end of which you can create your own personalized music playlist on January 29^th at 5:30 pm!

Look through our calendar and join us this month as we explore our creativity through music with outings to local musical performances, Elvis’ birthday celebrations and concerts by our Joyful Noise Choirs. We invite you to Welcome New Beginnings at Juniper Village and make a habit of joining us for activities and events throughout the year!