As one of the volunteer roles played by Grinnell College students in The Mayflower Community, SLWS students take on various activities with Health Center and Beebe Assisted Living residents. The Student Leadership Work Study (SLWS) program requires prospective volunteers to apply, be interviewed, and be selected to be accepted into the program. Organized by Mayflower’s…
Kayley Rönnkvist (she/her) is a third-year student at Grinnell College originally from St. Peter, Minnesota, a town of about 10,000 people in south central Minnesota. She is majoring in French and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies. Kayley began volunteering at Mayflower in 2019 when she helped coordinate the Adopt-A-Grandparent program between healthcare residents and Grinnell…
On Thursday, December 9th, the Grinnell College “Fresh Flutes” ensemble performed a mini-concert tonight in The Mayflower Community Buckley Dining Room to a gathering of about 40 residents. Fresh Flutes has been a staple ensemble of the Grinnell College Music Department since the early 1990s. Always seeking repertoire that covers a range from traditionally Classical…
On Tuesday, November 30th, four different Grinnell College student ensembles presented an hour of chamber music at Mayflower. They performed under the direction of Alan Henson, Applied Music Associate and the Director of Chamber Ensembles at Grinnell College. Leslie Jaworski, Director of Community Life and Wellness at Mayflower coordinated the event in Mayflower’s Buckley Dining…
On August 23rd, Grinnell College student, Carolina Klauck Novaes, shared information about her home country Brazil with The Mayflower Community residents in Beebe Assisted Living and Health Center. The accompanying photos are courtesy of Community Life and Wellness Coordinator, Tracy Woolfolk, who organized the program. Carolina’s home is Porto Alegre, shown in the map in…
Mercedes Varela, a May 2021 Grinnell College graduate, has been volunteering at Mayflower in the Health Center as a conversation companion to resident Sallie Verrette. The two women have been speaking French and Spanish with each other since Mercedes started “visiting” weekly via Zoom in February 2021. Once visitations were allowed by state and federal…
Cynthia Hu, a first-year student at Grinnell College, is interning one to two days a week at The Mayflower Community as part of Grinnell College’s work-study program. She is studying under Keira Wilson, the Assistant Director of Service and Social Innovation in the Center for Careers, Live, and Service. This service learning position is funded…
The ten Grinnell College students who spent their winter break in Grinnell taking Certified Nurse Aide (CNA) classes and performing clinical training in the Mayflower Health Center, all passed their certification testing on Monday, January 20th! The examination process included a skills portion, where the students had to demonstrate universal precautions, resident safety, and health…
During the last week of Winter Break at Grinnell College, two student-athletes joined their teammates for special dinners in The Mayflower Community. For these two women, this was not their first time at Mayflower. They were part of the June 2019 Certified Nurse Aide (CNA) training class composed of College underclassmen planning to pursue medical…
The Mayflower Community (Grinnell IA) hosted on Thursday, January 16th, the fourth group of Grinnell College students on campus for winter break. 54 members of the Pioneer men’s and women’s Track and Field teams dined with their coaches and Mayflower resident hosts. Women’s Head Coach, Evelyn Freeman, and Men’s Head Coach, Will Freeman, have been…