Our Liberty Mansfield family loves to celebrate birthdays, and this month we had an exceptional one. Long-time memory care resident, Beulah, turned 98 on Valentine’s Day. Our director of nursing and our social services director, along with Beulah’s favorite nurse, escorted her throughout the facility for a meet and greet so she could receive birthday wishes and delicious chocolates. Beulah is well-known here and seldom misses an opportunity to sing hymns and play the tambourine when we hold Bible studies. She loves music, so the perfect complement to her special day was a Motown music party, complete with homemade cupcakes baked by her daughter. Congrats Beulah!

Our Liberty Mansfield community is a place where friendships easily grow. One example is the strong bond that developed between current resident council president, Jeffrey Whitmeyer (shown), and previous president, John Henney. Unfortunately, we recently lost Mr. Henney and he'll be greatly missed by everyone. John not only mentored Jeffrey in this role, but the two shared a mutual interest in the history of Mansfield. They were fond of discussing and researching the topic and started a small resident group that meets two evenings a week to reminisce about our city. Jeffrey enjoys demonstrating how to use technology to do historical research and John's rich family heritage in Mansfield gave him many interesting stories to share. Since his family visited regularly, they are like family to our little community. So it was wonderful that Liberty bused many of our residents and staff to his funeral so we could celebrate his rich life with such a wonderful family.

The Leadership Team from Woodland and Prospect elementary schools recently dropped by to share some Christmas cheer with our residents. With joyful hearts they caroled, passed out candy treats and played Bingo with us. The group in this photo decorated a wall in our Memory Care unit with gingerbread men and a felt Christmas tree. The colorful velcro ornaments allowed residents to decorate the tree themselves. The students brightened our day and promised to return with more fun on Valentine's Day.

We hosted our first large event for the holiday season this past Saturday. It took a healthy dose of wonderful volunteers and staff to pull off a beautiful family Thanksgiving Feast. Nurse assistant Michelle Cook and a resident are seen here making last minute decisions on seating arrangements for 50+ guests. It was a wonderful afternoon of delicious food and Ohio State football. Thanks to all who helped to make this a success and we're grateful for all the families and friends who took time to join us.

We love visitors—and aren’t picky about shape or size. In fact, some of the most entertaining are four-legged. Recently, residents enjoyed a wonderful visit from the Columbus Zoo. Besides learning interesting animal facts, residents who were curious enough, had the opportunity to handle some of the unusual guests. Betty, a Liberty resident, got up close and personal with this little alligator. We’re all in agreement that we're looking forward to another visit very soon!

The days are passing quickly and we're starting to make plans for Halloween. Our Cooking Club has been putting their heads together trying to come up with a creative treat to pass out to our little visitors on beggars' night. Residents and staff absolutely loved what they finally decided on—cookie dentures!

Billie Hailey, our rehabilitation manager, and her therapy team are always looking for interesting ways to improve physical therapy sessions for our rehab residents. They've been hoping for the chance to enhance therapy outcomes through aquatic exercises. Water’s natural buoyancy allows patients to move in the water without the stress of land-based exercises and the water’s resistance improves progress. After sharing some of the team's “out of the box” ideas with Michelle Smollen, our licensed social worker, they decided to initiate a poolside therapy session. Michelle and her husband, Tom, were kind enough to recently invite our rehab patients to their home for an aquatic therapy session that was topped off by a wonderful cookout. We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful afternoon and hope to have the opportunity to do this again next summer with our rehab patients. This is just another example of the unparalleled dedication and teamwork of the Liberty Mansfield staff.

When Barbra Wilson came to our facility's dementia unit a little over a year ago she was frequently agitated and combative, making family visits very discouraging at times. Thanks to the keen observation of Diana Johnson, Liberty Mansfield's Dementia Life Enrichment Coordinator, Barbra's talent and deep love of music was uncovered.

It’s county fair season again, so we’re looking forward to the Richland County Fair’s ageless beauty contest. The pageant features local nursing home residents, who compete for a crown and year-long titles of King, Queen and Duchess. We’re proud that last year’s Queen was our very own Betty Jones, and shortly she’ll be passing the crown on to her 2019 successor. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Betty for her diligent efforts as she headed up Liberty Nursing Center of Mansfield’s welcoming committee this past year. As a result, she had the pleasure of meeting Matti-Lynn Chrisman, 2018’s Miss Ohio, when she visited our community several months ago. Here, Betty and Matti-Lynn are meeting in our community room where Betty passed on a few insightful tips about the responsibilities of wearing the crown. We’re all looking forward to the announcement of 2019’s ageless beauty winners!