Easter is a great time for celebration and our friend with Alzheimer’s dementia is ready to participate. She can recall several events from her past which made the Easter season special for her. Although most of those memories included fun activities from when she was a child, we didn’t let that stop us. We have plenty of ideas to modify traditional Easter activities into ones that are appropriate for her to complete. Our modifications will let her enjoy the process of making them plus they will serve as a welcome gift for others who live in our senior community. So, don’t let it stop you if you are looking to include your grandparent or senior loved one with cognitive issues in some of the fun. With the appropriate modifications, you’ll both have an enjoyable time!
Filling plastic Easter eggs with candy is fine for children, but not for seniors who have health restrictions that affect what they can eat. Yet, it is fun to open the eggs to see what’s inside, so we decided to come up with a senior-appropriate alternative. Plastic Easter eggs filled with Bible verses are just the thing that our community vespers attendees will appreciate.
We selected six verses that relate to the Easter message, printed them on colored paper, cut them into strips, and placed each in an egg. 
For variety, uplifting and encouraging sayings, or jokes and riddles could be used. Even small items like samples of hand lotion, perfume, make-up, or coupons for services would work. We did the cutting prior to the visit so the verses would be ready for her to place in the eggs.
For our purposes, we chose six scriptures, one for each of our different pastel-colored plastic eggs, and put them inside. We filled our baskets with plastic grass, added the eggs and an Easter-themed cross and will have these ready for the Easter Sunday vespers service.
The craft-foam eggs with “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” will be distributed at the Palm Sunday vesper service. These were made from kits we ordered from Oriental Trading Company. They are stickers that are easily placed on foam backings and our friend loves to make them. She enjoys reading the message and will often add an occasional phrase or short sentence about how much she enjoys church and related activities. These verses remind her of when she used to teach Vacation Bible School and children’s Sunday School. Her reading skills have improved since our visits began. She can read short phrases and looks forward to doing so.
We found this basket design in our computer clip art, and printed it on yellow card stock. One of the Lady-Links painted the “background” eggs and the bow using watercolors prior to our visit with our friend. The three foam eggs are stickers and were added by our friend, making the basket complete! The craft foam eggs were part of a container of spring-themed stickers purchased at Michael’s. These baskets will be delivered by volunteers in our community when they take meals to home-bound residents during this Easter season. Other volunteers will use these baskets in the Card Ministry and include a note of encouragement with them.
All of these activities required some planning and preparation so that our friend could easily complete them at our March and April Lady-Links visits. Some activities were completed assembly-line style when we visited. We made sure her position on the assembly line was an activity that she could successfully complete. 
Our friend is not the only one who enjoys these activities. As Lady-Links, we also have fun.
An added blessing to our visits has been that our projects serve a dual purpose. They help our friend continue to maintain cognitive, emotional, spiritual, and physical links in her life, and those projects also serve as an encouragement to those in our community who receive them. Our friend knows that she is making these to give away and in doing so she realizes that she is helping others. There are few opportunities for a person with dementia to feel that they are making a significant contribution to another’s well-being. To know that we as Lady- Links have provided that opportunity for our friend brings us such joy.
As you celebrate this Easter season, may you find that same joy as you include your loved ones in activities that they can make and then share with their “senior” friends. Happy Easter!
I love the messages in the Easter eggs! What a great idea.