The following blog article was contributed by our friends at the Bruce McCandless Veterans Community Living Center. To learn more about this community living center, click here.
Last spring, in the middle the 2020 quarantine, veterans and staff at Bruce McCandless Veterans Community Living Center at Florence (located 30 miles south of Colorado Springs) joined together to plan both vegetable and flower gardens. Residents were given options to plant flowers and vegetables based on their personal preferences. Throughout the spring and summer, residents and staff tended to the gardens, growing beautiful flowers and vegetables.
The Bruce McCandless Employee Appreciation Committee decided to spend some of their funds to purchase colorful pinwheels, ladybugs, and small garden accessories to brighten up the resident gardens. These flowers, bugs, pinwheels and decor added extra color and sparkle to the beautiful courtyards enjoyed by residents, visiting families and staff.
To solidify resident participation, each resident had the opportunity to select the areas in which to place the colorful pinwheels and garden accessories.
Andrea Salazar, Marketing Director at Bruce McCandless stated, “Throughout our home, we have beautiful courtyards and expansive outdoor areas. We are happy to provide these beautiful bright and colorful courtyards for our residents to enjoy, especially when they were unable to go out into the community this summer. In spite of the pandemic our team has worked very hard to help keep the spirits up for all of our veterans and spouses.”
In addition to the beautiful flowers, throughout the summer, staff and residents were able to enjoy the vegetables that were grown in the gardens.
Caption: Army veteran Ron Burns spent countless hours tending to the outdoor gardens as a resident at Bruce McCandless Veterans Community Living Center at Florence.
