Volunteer brightens Golden Living retirement home
Karen Cappellini of Morgan Township waters a vegetable garden that she volunteered her time to build at the Golden LivingCenter’s facility in Franklin Township.
From left, Golden LivingCenter at Waynesburg Executive Director Jackie Hainer-Weaver, volunteer Karen Cappellini and, in front, Lacey Braddock pose in front of Golden Living’s float at the Jacktown Fair July 19. The float, built by Cappellini and her sister, Carol Spitznogle, won first place.
WAYNESBURG – Karen Cappellini works full-time as a legal secretary and also runs her beef cattle farm in Morgan Township, but recently, she’s tacked on another project to her busy schedule.
As a volunteer at Golden LivingCenter in Franklin Township, the 53-year-old started out doing some small painting jobs inside the retirement home, but soon took on the larger project of building multiple gardens at the facility and doing all the landscaping around the campus.
“It’s been very, very gratifying,” she said. “I just wanted to do something for them and it makes the residents feel like they’re more at home. It gives me enjoyment seeing them enjoy it.”
Cappellini started the project in early spring. She said she’s loved gardening and landscaping her whole life and it’s a hobby for her. She said Golden LivingCenter does pay her a little bit, but she puts the money right back into purchasing flowers, vegetables, seeds and other items for the landscaping.
“She put in a lot of her own money to put in flowers and rocks and stone and plants and a vegetable garden,” said Rachal Estle, who is Cappellini’s daughter-in-law and also the social service director for the Golden LivingCenter. “She put in a fairy garden with grape vine and white Christmas lights all around it.”
“It is beautiful,” she said. “The residents loved it and they love Karen. They were just in awe.”
Estle said the residents especially appreciated Cappellini’s work because many of them remember having gardens at their previous homes before they came to Golden Living.
“A lot of our elderly residents did gardening and landscaping at their former homes, but they can’t do that anymore,” she said.
After the landscaping and gardens were complete the center held a garden party, that started with a picnic lunch and ended with a butterfly release July 15. The residents also got to take back to their rooms a small basket with vegetables from the garden.
“Residents and their family members could take a tour and we had ordered real butterflies in envelopes from Florida and had them over-nighted here,” Estle said.
Cappellini’s creativity for the center didn’t end with the landscaping. She and her sister, Carol Spitznogle, spent three weeks building the Golden Living float for the Jacktown Fair parade, winning first place.
“We had a wheelbarrow in the center filled with flowers, a fountain with running water, a tree with lights on it, a porch with a swing and beautiful flowers everywhere,” Cappellini said.
Her volunteer work is part of a theme the center, which averages 102 residents, started about six months ago.
“We’re trying to do good by the residents for their mental health and relaxation and Karen is helping us pull it off,” Estle said.
Estle said they are planning to hold a carnival for the residents and their families in the parking lot Aug. 26, with cotton candy, funnel cakes, snow cones, a petting zoo, games, activities and even a chance for the residents to smush pie in the faces of employees.
“It’s fair time and they can’t get out to those anymore, so we’re going to bring it to them instead,” Estle said.
They’re also planning to have Cappellini work on a float for the Christmas parade hosted by Waynesburg Chamber of Commerce.
“I just love how well they treat their residents,” Cappellini said. “It feels like home when I’m there.”