Going on vacation if you live in a care center for the elderly. That is not so easy. Yet the residents of residential care center De Paasbergen in Odoorn are on the campsite every day. Together with residents, the activity supervisors set up camping site De Bosrand on their own grounds.
On the lawn at the back of the site are two tents and a large recreation tent, including an outdoor kitchen with cutlery, crockery, games and cozy seating areas. Activities are organized here, such as a singing hour, but residents can also go there spontaneously. In consultation, they can even organize a party or barbecue with family or friends. To avoid crowds at the campsite, interested parties can register for a spot on the campsite.
Normally, residents of De Paasbergen go ‘on holiday’ three times a week to camping De Fruithof in Klijndijk during the summer period. Those trips were canceled due to corona. Last year activity supervisors Anja Kuipers and Susanne Broeksema therefore set up a camping tent on the meadow along the forest. The residents liked that so much that they are going bigger this year.
“During the daytime activities, we were talking with residents about vacations from the past,” says supervisor Anja Kuipers. “We set up a camping committee with two residents from this, to shape the camping site. All kinds of fun stories came up about games that people played or places they visited. walk back, they say they had a wonderful day. That’s what you do it for.”
Thanks to the campsite, residents and clients are outside more often and therefore move more often. An extra detour is regularly made to the campsite to see how campers are enjoying themselves. The camping guests themselves have the greatest fun: “I think it’s a very nice idea,” says Roelof Snoeijing. He used to be not much of a camper, because he had a catering company himself, but nowadays he often visits the De Bosrand campsite. “Staying in your room becomes so monotonous.”
Also, fellow resident and camping committee member Roelie Juffer would not like to miss it: “You want to experience as much as possible. We used to go to the campsite, but not very often. Due to work and the weather, we went occasionally. us all the time.”