Greetings!
The words for the week here have been Passover and baseball! Quite a combination, right? Baseball, of course, refers to Opening Day on Thursday. We have a lot of Cincinnati Reds fans and Cedar Village was filled with Reds shirts, hats and other paraphernalia! The residents and staff gathered in the Wilbur and May Jean Cohen Religious and Cultural Center to watch the pre-game show, munch on "stadium style" treats and then cheer the Reds on to victory over the Miami Marlins. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the room and a great time was had by all! Despite our foray into baseball this week, we clearly are in Passover mode at Cedar Village! The Dietary staff set a new "world record" in the transition, taking only six days to take apart, clean and put back together both the Meat and Dairy kitchens and the Deli as well as all of the serving pantries and other small kitchens in the building. That may not sound like an enormous undertaking but, believe me, it is. When you prepare daily meals for close to 300 and have distinct food prep and serving areas on each Health Care unit, it requires a lot of hours, people power and planning. Kudos to all that crew! We began to get in the Passover mood on Monday when we had the pleasure of, once again, having Rockwern Academy students join us for an Intergenerational Seder. The students and our residents sat together, shared ceremony, song and food and it was truly lovely. Between the first and second parts of the Seder, when a meal would normally be served, some of the students read some jokes and told some funny stories to the enjoyment of all present. We love these opportunities for intergenerational programming and we are so appreciative of opportunities like this one! We continued to get into the holiday spirit on Wednesday when we made our favorite matzo toffee crunch with the residents in Health Care. Everyone had fun placing the matzos on the cookie sheets, pouring the caramel over the top, sprinkling on the chocolate chips and then, after the baking, tasting the scrumptious results! While we cook, we talk about Passover and share memories and recollections. This year we talked about favorite Passover foods. The consensus? Charoset was the number one choice! We shared our recipes for charoset as well, with some preferring to make it wth grape juice and others wine but everyone agreeing that it needed cinnamon and nuts! We talked about the customs in different homes-who hid the afikomen, parents or children? Consensus was parents with the children doing the searching! Did just the child who found it get the prize or did all the children? The consensus-all and the gift was normally "gelt" or either the chocolate or the real variety. On Thursday, Rabbi Walter spent the evening with the folks at Otterbein Lebanon. They had requested a model Seder and he was good enough to oblige. They had a large group of participants and it went extremely well. It's a great step in our partnership with Otterbein as we continue to plan an Interfaith Mission to Israel for the fall. This afternoon we will hold our annual Community Seder in the Wilbur and Mary Jean Cohen Religious and Cultural Center. With a crowd of about 200, we will have music, ceremony, food and fun. Later in the evening, both tonight and tomorrow, we will have traditional Seders in the Garden Dining Room. We'll continue on Monday at noon with a Seder for our Health Care residents and expect to have a crowd of about 150 for a lunchtime event. Then on Wednesday afternoon we will enjoy our second annual Chocolate Seder with the residents of the Oak View and Fountain View apartments! Passover is a wonderful time to be at Cedar Village! Holidays bring with them memories, stories, traditions and emotions. Each of us has images of Passovers past complete with joys, remembered laughter and some nostalgia for days gone by. We miss those in our lives whose presence is now only in our hearts and we recall the times we spent together celebrating Passover and other holidays. When we come together over the course of this next week, we honor our pasts and we recognize, with gratitude, the gift of our Cedar Village family. We wish all of you a healthy and happy Passover,
All the best, Carol Silver Elliott CEO/President
Cedar Village
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