For the past ten years, Friendly Home residents have been coming together to create heart-shaped pillows for cardiac patients at Rochester General Hospital. A celebration was held to commemorate the making of the 1,000th pillow.
Beth Perdan, a Life Enrichment Specialist at the Friendly Home, has been leading this special program for a decade, inspired by a family member in Utica who received a heart pillow while hospitalized. She estimates that over the years, hundreds of Friendly Home residents have worked on cutting hearts out of fabric, and sewing and stuffing the pillows for delivery to patients at Rochester General Hospital. A tag is attached to each pillow that reads: “Made with Love by Members of the Friendly Home.”
The making of the 1,000th pillow was a heartwarming milestone in this labor of love. “The heart pillow project has been incredible for our residents, providing a sense of purpose with a meaningful outcome. Although they are older and need assistance themselves, our residents know they can continue to make important contributions and help others. Looking back over the past ten years, it is most gratifying that we’ve been helping people on both sides – the residents making the pillows, and the patients receiving them,” says Perdan.
Friendly Home residents often participate in community service projects, which have also included collecting back to school items for underprivileged students, supplies for Ukrainian refugees and a Thanksgiving food drive for a local soup kitchen.
About the Friendly Home
The Friendly Home, located in Brighton, offers 24-hour skilled nursing care, short-term rehabilitation, memory care and hospice care. The Friendly Home is part of the Friendly Senior Living continuum of care. For more information, visit friendlyseniorliving.org.
The Friendly Home has been ranked #1 out of over 600 nursing homes on Newsweek’s list of 2021-2022 Best Nursing Homes in New York State. Additionally, the Friendly Home has been ranked as a Best Nursing Home by U.S. News & World Report. The Friendly Home has also received a 1st quintile (top) ranking from the New York State Department of Health’s Nursing Home Quality Initiative program, which recognizes top nursing homes based on quality, compliance and efficiency measures, and has a 5 Star rating, the highest possible, from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
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