As we do every year, we observed Yom Kippur together as a community and as a family at Cedar Village.  We had strong attendance in both the Synagogue and the Temple and it is always a very special time to be together.  We share such special moments during services and they are moments that many of us treasure.  Watching the joy in the faces of our residents as they have an opportunity to touch the Torah as it is brought around during the procession; seeing a staff member helping to turn the pages for a resident to make their participation in the service easier; listening to the voices of so many joined in prayer; watching a staff reach out to hold resident's hands during the Yizkor service and so many more.

We'll be celebrating Sukkot next week and we have a sukkah on the patio just outside the Deli and another outside the Garden Dining Room.  We hope that the weather will be conducive to lots of activities in both of those locations!  As always, we would love to have you join us for any or all events!

This week was also highlighted by a special Chesed project that our staff and Chesed Corps undertook.  As you know, our Chesed Corps is a group of resident volunteers who perform ongoing "acts of loving kindness."  Each week, the Chesed group creates Sabbath baskets, with challah, fruit, candy and juice, for distribution at area hospitals.  Each month, we do an outreach service project.  We've been to the Ronald McDonald House on five separate occasions, bringing and serving a lunch that our volunteers prepared. We've spent an evening at Halom House and have had two "unbirthday" parties at the Center for Respite Care, a shelter for homeless individuals with medical needs. We've been to Crayons to Computers and to a community meal center to provide and serve dinner.  This week we had the opportunity to do something entirely different.  We made gold ribbons to recognize that September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.  Our Chesed volunteers created these ribbons and then offered them for a donation to residents, staff and visitors.  All funds collected will be donated to a nonprofit organization, Kids V.Cancer, which promotes research on pediatric cancer.  If you'd like to learn more about this organization and their great work, you can check them out at www.kidsvcancer.org.  

We are very excited to announce that our Wii bowling team, the Kosher Kingpins, has been participating in the National Senior League Wii bowling 2012 tournament.  There are teams competing from all over the country, organized into different conferences.  We concluded the tournament with the Kosher Kingpins coming in #2 in their conference!  Our team has worked hard, practiced and focused to achieve this result and we are so delighted for them!

Building Bridges at Any Age, our interfaith mission, will begin October 24.  We are traveling with both Cedar Village residents and a group from Otterbein in Lebanon, for a total of 13 older adult participants.  We are all looking forward to this groundbreaking mission.  We've spent a lot of time learning about each other's faith traditions and beliefs and we'll be attending services with one another during the weekend of October 13.  We'll be here at the Cedar Village Temple on Saturday, October 13 at 10 a.m. and at Otterbein on Sunday morning.  Please feel free to come and join us if you would like!  In the weeks to come, we'll let you know the best ways for you to follow this trip and share in our experiences daily.

All the best,  

carol@cedarvillage.org