How purpose is shaping senior living activities in Towson, MD
If you’re looking for evidence of Edenwald’s long-established culture that emphasizes meaningful senior living activities, lifelong learning, and personal growth, look no further than the 30+ clubs and groups residents can get involved with.
Edenwald residents have created many of these clubs and groups, including several started by Joan McMahon. “It’s not just me,” Joan says. “It’s infrastructure. It’s support. Lisha Galloway [vice president of resident services and institutions of higher education programming] and Mark Beggs [president and CEO] have said ‘yes’ to anything I’ve ever asked for. It’s all thanks to support at the top.”
Joan sees her desire to create groups and activities as a natural extension of her earlier professional life. For 33 years, she taught at Towson University, 25 of which were in the health sciences program.
While at Towson, Joan – who holds a doctorate degree in adult education, training, and development – founded several internal “start-up programs.” This includes the Center for Instructional Advancement Technology, where she trained faculty members on how to use computers in their classrooms.
Finding Purpose in Senior Living
When Joan and her husband John retired in 2006 and moved to Edenwald, she wasted no time in carrying on her passion for developing start-up programs – especially those that would have a meaningful impact on the community. It began with a crafting group.
“I moved all my personal craft materials into the arts and crafts studio,” Joan says, “and launched a craft program where you collaborate with each other, have fun, and make some things that are enjoyable. Not trinkets, but useful items.”
One day, while the crafting group was meeting, a resident interrupted the group. “I need a button sewn on,” he said. “How do I do that?”
A light bulb went off in Joan’s head, which led to the formation of her next start-up – a sewing service. What she didn’t anticipate, however, was how the sewing service would lead to a multi-generational friendship.
A New Family
The sewing service began with two seamstresses, who were brought in from the outside, and would perform various types of tailoring for Edenwald residents at competitive rates.
It didn’t take long for the sewing service to gain popularity with the residents. It was a clear win-win; the seamstresses came to Edenwald, making it extremely convenient for the residents. “Not having to travel – that’s a huge bonus,” Joan says.
In turn, the residents supplied the seamstresses with a steady flow of work. As Joan jokingly explains, “Everybody shrinks here, so everybody needs their pants hemmed.”
After a couple of years, the sewing service lost its two seamstresses, so Joan placed a want ad in the local bulletin board website, NextDoor. A volunteer at the Salaam Center in Highlandtown saw the ad and told Joan about an Afghan refugee, Farzana, who had come in the day before looking for work as a seamstress.
Joan interviewed Farzana, determined she would be a good fit at Edenwald, and got her to join the sewing service. Joan helped Farzana, her husband, and their four children with their transition to American life, and over time, they have become close friends. As Joan says, “The family has adopted me as their grandma.”
Today the sewing service also includes a Goucher College student who has her own sewing machine and comes in one afternoon a week.
Knitting With Intention
Another one of the meaningful senior living activities Joan’s developed is the knitting group.
“We make comfort dolls,” Joan explains. “We have a distributor that gets them into Baltimore City and Baltimore County police cars. We take them to the safe centers for sexual abuse. We make baby hats for the hospitals.”
The knitting group also allows Edenwald residents the chance to rekindle a passion from their past. “We have a knitter who’s 98,” Joan says. “She hadn’t knitted in 72 years, and she just finished making a shawl.”
Joan describes another member of the knitting group. “She hadn’t knitted in 70 years, and now she’s cranking out baby hats like crazy. We just reconnect them with something they already knew how to do. It gives them purpose. It’s meaningful work.”
Setting Up Shop
Joan’s husband John, a Navy veteran, taught middle school shop for 25 years in Howard County, MD. The nature of the public school shop class funding (or lack thereof) was such that if something broke, it was up to John to fix it. This experience would serve him well at Edenwald.
When John arrived, Edenwald had a fix-it and repair center, but what really needed fixing and repairing was the center’s equipment itself. “So, we came in and John started fixing,” Joan says. “He got all the equipment working and reorganized the shop.”
Thanks to John’s efforts, the fix-it program is going gangbusters, as Joan puts it. “He knows more people than I do, because they come down, and he does their lamp repairs, furniture repairs – you just can’t imagine,” she says. “Every day is different for him.”
John is also responsible for Edenwald’s woodworking shop, which has become a favorite activity for many residents. All this has made John well-known throughout the community. “I’m often known as John’s wife,” Joan quips.
Farzana’s family is getting involved in the program as well. “We’re making jewelry now,” Joan says. She’s taking donated mahjong tiles, then showing the family’s 15-year-old daughter Masha how to operate the drill press to make earrings out of them. “She’s making this jewelry for our residents, who are just so thrilled they can help a 15-year-old,” Joan says.
“The Edenwald Living Learning Lab”
When asked whether she could see herself launching any new start-ups as Edenwald deepens its relationship with Goucher College, Joan beams. “Already done it,” she says.
She explains how one day she encountered a member of the Goucher College faculty in an Edenwald hallway. He was teaching a course called Art in the Community. Joan, recognizing the extraordinary potential for intergenerational learning, suggested he have his class visit Edenwald. “We have 10 people over 100-years-old here,” she says. “We have World War II veterans. We have Holocaust survivors. We have refugees.”
The students interviewed a number of Edenwald residents and created works of art based on what they heard. During finals week of that semester, the students returned to Edenwald to showcase the art the residents’ stories had inspired.
Joan is excited about future opportunities with Goucher College and its students. She’s unsure about how the specific programs will shake out. “But for me, personally,” she says, “as an academic, I’m calling us ‘The Edenwald Living Learning Lab.’”
Does she plan to continue to harness her experience and skills to give back to the Edenwald community? Decidedly so. “That’s what I do,” she says. “That’s my background – loving life and doing meaningful work.”
Getting Involved
As any Edenwald resident will tell you, getting involved with a club or group is quick and easy. And if you have a passion you’d like to pursue, it’s just as easy to establish a new club and find other residents who would like to join you.
If all these activities and opportunities sound like something you’d be interested in, contact an Edenwald residency counselor at 410-339-6263.
