10 Ways to Celebrate National Skilled Nursing Care Week in 2023

National Skilled Nursing Care Week will take place from May 14-20, 2023.
The theme for this year is ‘Cultivating Kindness’ as a tribute to the kindness and above-and-beyond connections that happen every day in skilled nursing communities across the country.

Whether you celebrate with a few activities or a full month of events, here are some ideas to inspire you!  To start, visit the official website to pull logos and marketing ideas.

1. Spreading Seeds

The word cultivating brings to mind gardening, which goes hand-in-hand with making your local community a bit more beautiful. Consider working with your local garden store or Agriculture Department to get packets of wildflowers that are common in your area. Plan an outing to scatter the seeds throughout parkways, on the sides of the road, or in other open prairie areas. Come back in a few months to see what wildflowers are blooming because of your community!

2. Random Acts of Kindness

Start a week-long initiative to get residents, family members, guests, and staff to perform random acts of kindness inside of your community and outside your local town. When someone performs an act of kindness, have them jot down what they did on a post-it note at your community’s front desk and activity room. Have them stick the post-it note on a designated wall or board of your community. Watch how much your community can grow over the week!

3. Pay It Forward

For a fun outing, visit a local coffee shop and order. While your group sits there enjoying their treats, have residents go up one at a time to pay for the order of other customers who come in. It’s fun to see people’s reactions! This is a great way to spend some of your budget, but you can probably get marketing money involved as well. Have them write up a press release about it and post it on social media to show off the kindness of your residents.

4. Visit Busy Bees

Bees rely on kind people who cultivate flowers. Plan an outing to visit a local bee farm, or invite the beekeeper to give a presentation to your residents. Serve honey samples from the farm, along with honey buns and tea (with honey, of course).

5. Build a Garden Bed

Even if you already have a raised garden bed in your community, use this week as the catalyst to build another one. Invite residents to paint boards, and measure and mark cuts while your maintenance staff or volunteers complete the build. Mark the occasion by adding the National Skilled Nursing Care Week logo for this year somewhere on the garden bed.

6. Grow Your Garden

Invite family members, guests, and residents to take part in a community garden clean-up. Prep your outdoor areas by sweeping sidewalks, raking leaves, and putting up your summer decorations. Have a plant potting station as well where residents and guests can plant a flower or vegetable in a pot and dedicate the pot to their family. Keep a sharpie and blank plant markers for residents to write their names and put in their pots.

7. Say Something Kind

Before an activity each day of the week, have residents say something kind about the person to their left. It doesn’t take long, and you will be surprised at how good it makes everyone feel!

8. Write About It

Incorporate a writing activity or word game into your calendar this week. Write about kindness, see how many words you can form with the phrase Cultivate Kindness, or write poetry about how kindness can make you feel.

9. Host a Spring Fling

Kick off or conclude your celebration with a Spring Fling, complete with a favorite entertainer performing. This is also a great time to recognize staff members for their dedication to the community with awards and to do a fun raffle for residents.

10. Play KIND-O

Swap out a resident favorite, BINGO, with KIND-O. You can play the same way, just switch out the letters at the top of the board. You can also create your own KIND-O card for residents to play throughout the week, with each square containing something they can see, do, or observe. For example, “held the door for someone”, “gave a staff member a high five”, and “called a family member to say hi” would be good additions to the board.

Not at a skilled nursing facility but want to still have some fun? Call a local SNF to see what your residents can do to support and celebrate them during the week!

National Skilled Nursing Care Week is a wonderful time to honor the skilled care professionals, communities, and residents in our greater area. I’d love to hear how you are celebrating this year - share in the comments!