Saturday, October 29, 2016

Celebrations of Community

Kendal at Granville is a genuine community. We enjoy each other's company, we rejoice and play and grieve together, we arrive at our decisions by emulating the Quaker discipline of consensus-building, and we party together. A coincidental juxtaposition of events this past week – each a celebration of this spirit of community – has triggered these happy thoughts and underscored some of the reasons we are pleased to call Kendal at Granville our home.

The first event occurred at dinnertime on Tuesday evening. We call it "Harvest Festival." The fall weather was glorious, and the fare provided by our culinary crew – hotdogs, brats, chicken, corn on the cob, salads, candies, a variety of light and heavy sweets, and lots of other items – gave the celebration the air of a festive party. Everyone was invited: residents, their families, employees, their families and children (of all ages). A horse-drawn hayride was available to anyone bold enough to climb in. (Many did.) And the proximity of Halloween meant of course that costumes were in order. Kids wandered about during the dinner hours – shepherded by adults and dressed as superheroes, TV characters, denizens of the Star Wars universe, and princesses. At one point the costumed kids marched in order through the dining halls to receive candy that had been thoughtfully arrayed on all the occupied tables. As you might guess, given the national decision in recent years that kids shouldn't have sole claim to the fun of Halloween, many grown-ups donned unusual gear too. The wait staff all wore identical baseball-themed tee-shirts, and witches, farmers, a few bearded folk, a married couple straight out of "Mad Men," and characters from the world of Harry Potter could be found dining and chatting with one another or strolling through the halls, perhaps holding hands with a young tiger. Community, indeed!

The second event, very different in tone but equally emblematic, occurred the very next evening. It was a wine-and-hors-d'oeuvres reception for both the residents and the members of Kendal's board of trustees, organized with the explicit purpose of giving these two groups an opportunity to get to know each other more fully. Kendal's board consists of fifteen men and women. They come from a diverse set of professional backgrounds, and all of them are active in leadership roles throughout the Granville and Licking County communities. It is hard to find a time when they can all get together. But this event was important for board members, and despite the press of their busy lives every member of the board attended. Residents came out in large numbers too, and so for half an hour the Amelia Room rang with the sounds of friendly and sometimes animated conversation. Doug Helman, the Executive Director, initiated the more formal portion of the occasion by inviting the crowd to answer a series of trivial-pursuits type questions about the board by-laws, and several residents showed themselves startlingly well versed in the governance rules of Kendal. Doug then invited the board members to introduce themselves to the gathering and to briefly and in turn tell everyone a bit about themselves. The tone of the introductions was sometimes light and sometimes earnest, some illuminating anecdotes emerged from the remarks, and ultimately everyone had reason to come away from the event feeling confident in the vitality and wisdom that undergird the Kendal project.

It was a quirk of scheduling that positioned these complementary celebrations back-to-back. But such calendrical serendipity invites a pretty obvious conclusion: that the Kendal community is real, thriving, inventive, and happy. That's a nice thought to go forward with as we enter the month that ends with the holiday we call Thanksgiving. 

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