Search Party!!!

 It has been challenging to have social events at Elderberry during Covid, but we have been very creative!  A few weeks ago we had our annual Chinese New Year celebration.... we all made Chinese foods, but we couldn't eat together, so we had the dinner event (and shared our fortunes from the homemade fortune cookies) on Zoom.  This past weekend we had our first potluck together in a year!  It was a Saint Patrick's Day outdoor party and is deserving of its own blog post (watch this space!).  In between those two events, we launched a program we call Elderberry Jam.

The idea behind Elderberry Jam is to ongoingly foster relationship-building in the community.  The Culture Committee solicited ideas from members about events, formats and discussion topics that they would find fun, interesting or thought-provoking.  Armed with this information we held out first Elderberry Jam event - a Search Party!

Prior to the event, the Culture Team had taken photos of discrete objects all around the 10 acres of Elderberry property.  Near each object was a word.  Teams of two had about 40 minutes to search the grounds to find the items shown in the photos (14 in all), collect the words, and try to form them into a sentence.

Vonda, Mary and Joyce gave instructions to the teams and sent them on their way.  At the bottom of their form, each team was also asked to rate how much fun they had, and how much assistance they gave to other teams.

Things started off a bit competitively but before long, teams were teaming up!

Nancy (in red) wasn't able to get around the grounds, but she sat quite close to two of the clues and gave hints to all the teams.

Stewart and Mary Kay found another word!

Stewart, Mary Kay, Joan, Karen and Jacquie all teamed up (little Minnie helped too)

After finding all of the words, Barb and Karolyn are trying to figure out the sentence, which answered the question "How do we find what we are looking for in life?"

We teamed Diane with Richard, because Diane is our newest resident and had little idea of where to find the objects in the photos,  and Richard pretty much knows every inch of Elderberry, so he could find most of the objects easily.  Even he was stumped on a few, though!

When we were all done, we had some special treats.  Vonda had bought Locopops (great popsicles from a local place) and Linda made fruit cups.  We also had prizes.... not just for those who found the most objects and words, but also for those who found the least, and those who had the most fun, and those who helped other teams the most!

It turned out that everyone loved this event.  Not only was it a fun game, but people had to explore the whole community and get some good exercise to boot!  And the answer to the question of "How do we find what we are looking for in life?"   If you unscrambled the words, you come up with:

By welcoming new experiences, trusting our hearts, opening our minds,
and appreciating diverse views.