GOOD NEWS

Thanksgiving is a formal affair at Glen Oaks

Thanksgiving dinner - for many nowadays it's nothing more than a thrown-together pot luck before the football game. Not so at Glen Oaks Convalescent Center in Shelbyville, where the staff does the holiday up right with formal service, candlelight, soft music and place cards.

For the past decade, the staff at Glen Oaks has held a formal Thanksgiving meal for patients and their families. The idea is to make the meal particularly special for the patients, and try to "take the being in a nursing home part out of it," says Penny Richardson, administrator at the 130-bed nursing home.

"Most of the time when you have Thanksgiving with the family, it's kind of formal," she says. "You drag out the fine china and tablecloths."

So Glen Oaks did just that, dressing up tables scattered throughout the facility with tablecloths, candles and place cards for the guests. Each patient can invite up to five guests, and they receive an invitation, including the menu, ahead of time. Staff, dressed in black pants and cummerbunds, carries the food from the buffet line to the table, and the whole facility is decorated with an autumn theme.

To accommodate the more than 100 people who usually attend, Glen Oaks sets up tables in practically every room: the activities room, the conference room, the offices… sometimes even the beauty shop.

Patients get into the act as well, buying special outfits for the night and getting their hair done.

"A lot of them are not able to go home on Thanksgiving Day, so we just try and make it special," Richardson says. "We have actually had families who were not able to get together for several years come together here, because of the timing." The dinner is held the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

Last year, Glen Oaks called the Tennessee Department of Health and signed up to deliver meals to shut-ins who wouldn't have had a Thanksgiving meal at all.

Most of Tennessee's nursing homes hold Thanksgiving dinners to encourage families to visit and commune with their relatives in the home, but Glen Oaks takes the concept a step further. That's a quality that made Glen Oaks one of THCA's 2001 statewide award winners. The facility was presented the Family Relations Award.

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“Good News” is a feature designed to spotlight some of the many positive aspects of long-term care in Tennessee. Know of a “good news”  item? Contact THCA’s Communications Department at info@thca.org.