Meals from the Heartland volunteers at the Perry Lutheran Home started their assembly-line packaging at 9 a.m. Wednesday, and by the time the program ended at 4 p.m., they had packaged about 25,000 meals, some 5,000 more than at last year’s charity event.
“I give all the credit to our father, God,” said Dr. Randy McCaulley, who spearheaded the second annual food-packaging effort. McCaulley raised nearly $5,000 for the event, including $928 at his benefit concert Sunday at the Perry Bible Church.
“That amount will be matched by Curt and Aimee Carlson,” he said, “so the net result will be $1,856. Praise the Lord!”
About 10 percent of Meals from the Heartland feed undernourished people right here in central Iowa, according to a Meals from the Heartland coordinator from the group’s West Des Moines warehouse. The rest of the nonprofit organization’s packaged meals go to countries such as Haiti, Ghana and South Africa.
Interested visitors could tour the Perry Lutheran Home and see several dementia-related displays, such as a “Music and Memory” display arranged by IdentitE Program Director Alyssa Poland. Formerly known as the activity director, the IdentitE position focuses on engagement, enrichment, exercise, education and entertainment, Poland said.
Chief Care Officer Deb Koelln said dementia researchers discovered music can sometimes reach dementia patients otherwise unresponsive. The trick is to find the music they like, she said, and the Perry Lutheran Home is working on a program for young people to work as “music detectives,” helping to discover patients’ musical tastes.
Koelln also led a dementia-simulation exercise for visitors. Tammy Watts of Marathon, Iowa, participated in the exercise, wearing headphones, glasses and gloves that produced the sensory experience of dementia. The headphones simulated the loud, chaotic, overstimulated sense of hearing of dementia victims, and the glasses gave the effect of reduced peripheral vision, another common symptom.
Watts was even given shoe inserts in order to make standing and walking painful, also a dementia symptom. Once she was fitted out, Watts was given a set of tasks to perform as a dementia victim, including folding laundry.
“I did three out of the five tasks,” Watts said. She said she was in Perry visiting her daughter, Perry Lutheran Home Marketing Director Mollie Clark, and was happy to take part in the activity.
The Perry Lutheran Home will soon open its intergenerational child care program, and the program’s recently hired director, Tammy Kratz of Jewell, was on hand to greet visitors and show them the day care space, which is under construction.
“This will be a unique opportunity to have elders and children interacting on a daily basis,” Kratz said. “I’m really excited to be part of this program, and we will be reaching out to the community and residents for ideas on how we can come together.”
Kratz said she will officially start work April 20 and will work with the facility’s board of directors on a manual for the program and will facilitate inspections by the Iowa Department of Human Services. Kratz said she worked most recently as the coordinator for rural youth services out of the Ames office of Youth and Shelter Services.
