Nothing is more therapeutic
than having something useful to do, and seniors need that sense of
accomplishment as much as the next guy.
The Seattle Times (December
26, 2009) featured an article by Erik Lacitis about a pen making project initiated
by an 89 year old senior. Participants
started out making hand crafted wooden pens as gifts for family and friends but
eventually started selling them for fundraising purposes.
Their craftsmanship gives
them something productive to do and makes them feel good. They use hand tools and it takes six hours to
make one pen so it is obviously a labor of love. She figures that at 89 they shouldn’t be using
power tools so they do their magic the old fashioned way, with tools that don’t
even need to be plugged in.
So many of the projects
given the seniors at assisted living facilities are well meaning but they are
just busywork to keep them keep them occupied. Hand crafting something that becomes a work of
art is indeed something to be appreciated and cherished.
Her group of women has made
over 300 of the smooth shellacked pieces (pieces which become pens or letter
openers), that show off the grain and color of the fine grained woods. To them, hand crafting a wooden pen beats
playing bingo any day, and what started as a hobby has become a real art form.
The pen making group was
formed in 2007. The participants buy the
wood and pen parts (about $4 per pen).
Some of the women have been selling pens at $45 a piece so we aren’t
just talking about busywork here.
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