Hello!
Please consider using social distancing to enjoy some of these word games with your residents and staff. Please reach out to us with any questions, and feel free to share with others!
Best wishes,
Stay Sharp Volunteers
It is heartbreaking to think that social isolation is not new for some older adults. A report by the Administration for Community Living’s Administration on Aging of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 13.8 million of community dwelling older adults in live alone. Research has even linked social isolation and loneliness to higher risks for a variety of physical and mental conditions including obesity, weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, and cognitive decline.
The Stay Sharp committee typically hosts events to promote socialization and engagement with older adults through board games. However, due to the COVID-19 outbreak our ability to organize groups has been curtailed. Stay Sharp has developed a list of one-player and small group games that can be easily sanitized to ensure that we can still engage our mind, body, and spirit during this tough time. Please remember that if you are playing a game in a small group to wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds before and after playing.
Check out these games!
By now it should come at no surprise that we've closed our game library. The cafe, which pays the rent for our library space, is now open 9am-9pm and offering to-go orders only including board games. It only took a few hours yesterday for such a dramatic change.
This will be a trying time for our small nonprofit, which depends greatly upon another small business, Spielbound Board Game Cafe, to keep our games available to the public.
Our weekly group meetings of Spielmasons, Stay Sharp, and our staff have moved to virtual meetings. We still can get access to our library for upcoming events and for cataloging/repairing, but it will be greatly restricted.
We will still be here on the other end of this pandemic and we will be fundraising again as part of Omaha Gives! in May as we highlight the many events planned for the summer and beyond. Our volunteers who helped create Unlock Midtown 2020 are also excited for you to experience that in a more comfortable future.
Thank you for your support and we wish you all a healthy time hopefully at home playing some board games.
Kaleb Michaud, PhD
Director and Co-Founder
Spielbound, Inc