Get ready to rock. Get ready to roll.
The Maple Ridge Pitt Meadows Katzie Seniors Network in collaboration with the Ridge Meadows Seniors Society Outreach team, and a number of volunteers will be bringing music, dance and fun to the communities of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows for Seniors Week.
A Roving Musical Celebration, including travelling minstrels and pop-up concerts featuring performer Phil Van Loo, will be celebrating in the streets – at a safe distance.
The wandering concert will be taking place June 6 in Pitt Meadows and June 9 and 12 in Maple Ridge.
READ MORE: Searching for isolated seniors in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows with music and dance
Then, throughout the summer, the Ridge Meadows Seniors Society Outreach team will be bringing back their popular Pop Up Jukebox.
Every Friday at 1:30 p.m. from June 4 until the end of July, weather permitting, the outreach team and some volunteers will be parading through the streets of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows with a bubble machine, steamers, and musical instruments and will be blasting music from a portable speaker.
Requests are welcome, said Bev Schmahmann, outreach services coordinator.
“Fun is mandatory,” she added.
In Maple Ridge, the team will be leaving the Maple Ridge Seniors Activity Centre at 12150 224 St., and heading north to Revera Sunwood Retirement Residence and to Chartwell Willow Retirement Community, then south to Brown Avenue past No Frills onto Dewdney Trunk Road, north along 224th Street, past the Royal Canadian Legion, and back around to the activity centre where they will play music in the parking lot outside Panorama Residential Tower.
In Pitt Meadows, the team will head out from the Pitt Meadows Seniors Activity Centre, at 19065 119B Ave., head north along 190A Street to Ford Road, pass the library, go through the square, onto Harris Road and visit apartment complexes around that area.
Last year the seniors outreach team started their very first every Pop Up Jukebox.
The team went out into the community to find those isolated, not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but those who may have lost their lifelong partners, who don’t have family in the community, who don’t have computers, or who may not be able to make it to the door because of a physical disability.
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Seniors at the various residences would come out onto the balconies, said Schmahmann describing last years event. And the ones who couldn’t would watch from inside behind glass. Then, Schmahmann’s troupe would distance themselves onto the street.
“We reached so many people on the street as well,” said Schmahmann, adding that they had hundreds of people come out and watch.
When they arrive at a residence, the dance party begins.
Schmahmann will still be trying to reach those seniors who have been isolated.
Last year, she said, her team reached a “huge” amount of people.
And, she noted, her outreach group received phone calls from isolated seniors that specifically found out about them from the Jukebox event.
When they were allowed to hand out items, the team handed out their brochures and fliers.
Then when seniors called in to say they saw them and compliment the event, Schmahmann would arrange for a volunteer caller, to call them back a couple of times – maybe once each week – to give them support.
Schmahmann is hoping people keep an eye out for the team during Seniors Week.
If you see bubbles and hear music, that’s going to be us, she noted.
Have a story tip? Email: cflanagan@mapleridgenews.com
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