The Westbury Senior Living Brings Story Corner to the Community

Planetary Scientist Carl Sagan once said, “One of the greatest gifts adults can give – to their offspring and to their society – is to read to children.”

Putting books into the hands of children and forming meaningful intergenerational relationships is a priority for Arrow Senior Living communities! To support our efforts, we have launched what we call “Arrow Story Corner.” Each month a resident records the reading of a children’s book that highlights an “Arrow Tradition,” and these stories are shared online for all to hear. This tradition has grown from our company-wide Black History Month Story Corners, where residents all around Arrow Communities read children’s books highlighting black figures in history.

To support small businesses and literacy efforts, we host a fundraiser and partner with the EyeSeeMe Children’s Bookstore to purchase and donate copies of the books we read to local schools, and then a portion of our fundraising efforts also support The EyeSeeMe Foundation. The Foundation’s mission is to create programs that increase childhood literacy for under-served communities and to promote African American History and multicultural literature that will increase respect and tolerance for diverse cultures.

This month, The Westbury Senior Living is taking things a step further and embarking on the adventure of monthly Story Corner events in our community. One of our very own residents will read the Story Corner book of the month to children, as well as other residents, and share in a craft event and snack time. The featured book will then be added to our community library for residents to read to visiting grandchildren. A copy of the book will also be donated to local schools with which our community partners.

Reading is an activity that is timeless and can be enjoyed by every generation. So many of our residents’ love reading and have also taught children to love reading in their lifetime, whether it be their own children and grandchildren or as a profession. Anyone can enjoy a well written story. Story Corner is a great opportunity to connect our residents and children may not otherwise meet or connect within their daily lives.

We have partnered with and have donated books to Locust Street Expressive Arts School. We also invite all the area elementary schools to our monthly Story Corner.

One of our residents was a reader for our Black History Month books that we donated to our partner school. She loved it so much she volunteered to be our reader each month for Story Corner. Barb is a retired teacher that loves sharing her love of learning with the world. For our first Story Corner she wanted the book early to read over, in order to give the children, the best experience.

A couple of our residents’ favorite books are On the Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman and Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. As a mother of a young child, I also love these books. They say exactly what we feel when we may not know the exact words to say.

All our Arrow communities encourage adults to give the gift of reading to youngsters. The relationships formed during the time spent between the reader and listener can be life changing for both generations.