BETHANY, Pa. — It has been a year since things were normal at Bethany Village Senior Living in Wayne County when residents could have visitors or just go out to lunch.
"Our residents were well involved in our community, and now with COVID, we can't go anywhere. We're stuck here. So, my goal is to make their life as exciting as possible," Bethany Village Senior Living Activities Director Kim Erickson said.
For a full year, Erickson has been coming up with ideas to keep the nearly 50 residents safe but still having fun. She is calling her latest project "Postcards Across America."
"In two days, these are the postcards we've gotten so far," Erickson said, showing us dozens of postcards from all over.
Erickson and the rest of the staff at Bethany Village are asking for postcards from every state. One family originally from Shamokin sent one from Arizona this week.
"So we got a map, and I said, 'Let's try to get one from all 50 states.' As we get the postcard, we're going to look it up, we're going to look for YouTube videos, and they just love it. It's like getting a present in the mail every day," Erickson explained.
Newswatch 16 was not allowed inside the senior living facility in Wayne County for safety reasons, but Erickson took photos of the residents learning all about the places they have already heard from.
"You can spirit their spirits are picking up, especially with the postcards because now they're asking me every day, 'What did we get today?'" Erickson laughed. "And we're going to mark them on our map, and we'll just keep everybody on our Facebook page and let you know what we got. And how awesome would it be to get every place in the world?" she said.
You can send your postcards to:
Bethany Village Residents
150 Noble Lane
Bethany, PA 18431