Board Dinner at Western Home

The Board at Western Home Communities celebrated the end of another year with a fabulous meal prepared by Executive Chef Norman Grant.  Norman joined our team this past March and has brought a lot of culture to Western Home.  A native of Jamaica Norman decided to prepare a traditional Jamaican Christmas dinner for the board this year.

 

 2016 Holiday Board Dinner 

 

Appetizer Jamaican Crab Puffs 

Fresh crab & seasoned cream cheese wrapped in fried pastry
Smoked Salmon Wrap 

Cold smoked salmon wrapped in seedless cucumber
Salad Zesty Calamari Salad 

Fresh squid, poached & fried, with arugula citrus greens & red wine vinaigrette
Entrees Jamaican Surf and Turf 

Jamaican herb crusted beef loin with poached mussels & roasted winter vegetables
Dessert 

Jamaican Christmas Pudding
Beverages 

Jamaican Sorrel Punch
Indaba Chenin Blanc White Wine
Angels and Cowboys Red Blend Red Wine
Red Stripe Beer

 

Randy Husted, CDM, CFPP

General Manager of Dining Services

Western Home Communities

Holidays Around the World at Villa St. Benedict

This month at Villa St. Benedict, "Holidays around the World" was the topic for diversity. Diversity champion, Nikki Beckus, put together a board with descriptions of countries and what they celebrate around this holiday season. The servers were most interested by Diwali. The Hindu festival of lights that is celebrated every year in the Northern hemisphere. It spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. The servers learned a lot and even started giving us information on holidays they know of!

  From Villa St. Benedict to all of you, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Christmas Party at Beaumont

OH WHAT FUN!   Beaumont Skilled Nursing and Rehab Celebrated the Holidays with DJ, Catering, Raffle Drawings, and Photo Shots. Our Dining Service Employee Lamar Williams won a car wash bucket from a raffle.

We had photo shoots and a ugly sweatshirt day.  Our Administrator Carrie Scott was decked out as a Christmas Tree on her sweater.  The lights where battery operated, bulbs and even a star a top of her head. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Deborah Watt 

Director of Dining Services

Oakwood Commons Rehab and Skilled Nursing

Virtual Sledding Party at Christian Rest Home

An impromptu conversation regarding a family outing, created a perfect opportunity to show value to our Client:  Dining Services put together a "Virtual Sledding Party" for facility-wide associate appreciation, featuring holiday cookies and hot chocolate for everyone to enjoy throughout the day.  With help from the Director of Nursing, we had an Ugly Sweater Contest, White elephant gift draw, and holiday music for all to relax, de-stress, and just have fun! 

Christina Bodanza, Director of Dining Services

Hero Board at AM McGregor

Above is our monthly themed "Hero Board" for December.  Each month our associates can get recognized for doing something well or above and beyond by having their name put on the recognition board.  Each month features a different theme, from clouds, to clovers, hearts, rainbows, turkey feathers, or ornaments.  We draw three winners each month and they enjoy prizes ranging from gift cards to movie tickets or café coupons. 

Each December we put everyone who made it on the monthly board up to create our holiday Christmas tree.

Our associates appreciate the prizes and recognition!  A special thanks to our manager Brenda Kemp for coming up with great themes and art work!

Jon Smith
 AM McGregor Retirement Community

HCMCF Chat Breaker

At a recent HCMCF dining staff in-service, a positive team building Chat Breaker exercise was conducted. Every member of the department had a sheet of paper with their name at the top. As each sheet of paper was passed around the room, everyone had to write a kind word or phrase describing that person working up from the bottom of the paper. Then they folded the sheet up to cover their words and pass it on to the next person. The purpose of the exercise was to get team members to focus on their teammates positive actions and inputs instead of always looking at their faults. Many found it easy to write positive words about their co-workers. 

Later, a board was created with everyone’s AFFIRMATIVE words posted on it. Everyone enjoyed reading their kinds words and how others described them. Many commented that it was nice to feel appreciated for their efforts and that the HCMCF Dining Services department is a great team to work with!

Andra Shier| Assistant Director of Dining Services | Huron County Medical Care Facility

Celebrating Holiday Traditions at Smith Crossing

To celebrate diversity this month at Smith Crossing, we created a traditions board.  All staff members wrote down their favorite holiday traditions and we posted them for everyone to see.  It was fun for everyone to learn more about each other and see the similarities and differences in our traditions!

Kara Superczynski

Dining Manager
Smith Crossing

Sanilac Medical Care Facility Heirloom

Sanilac Medical Care Facility, was honored with the Resident of the month for December's Heirloom. We celebrated our resident and served her Chicken Soup with polish noodles along with Grilled provolone sandwiches and lemon bars.  The residents truly enjoyed the recipe with  homemade polish noodles along  celebrating family and family holiday traditions. 

Billie A. Duvall, CDM, CFPP

Stocking Decorating at NorthPointe Woods

Last week after our annual Resident and Staff Christmas Party, our dining staff got together to decorate stockings! We had plenty of supplies and also some fun Christmas glasses to get us in the decorating mood! 

Everyone had a great time and the stockings look great! Can’t wait to do it again next year!

Katie VanderStraaten

Dining Services Director I NorthPointe Woods

St. Nicholas Day at James King Home

On December 6th there was a St. Nicholas Sighting!

The holidays can be a lonely time for many of our residents, so we teamed up with the Director of Social Services to secretly stuff St. Nicholas stockings and hang them on each residents' door. Residents were surprised and happy to get a little something. All stockings consisted of an ornament, goody bag and clementines. One of the residents went to the wellness nurse to ask who put the stockings out (we didn't tell) and began crying happy tears because he remembered getting the clementines as a little boy.

Brian Kempf | Chef Manager | James King Home & Ten Twenty Grove

Compass Night of Stars

Cheryl Naftel experienced a crowning moment when she received an Out Standing Award  for Enriching The Lives of Seniors Everyday! In addition, "Celebrating The Original Cool" in Orlando Florida For Compass Night of Stars! This was a tremendous achievement as well as an accomplishment  given to Cheryl Naftel and Staff for all their efforts to Enrich the Lives of Seniors. This prestigious award acknowledges the efforts that are so important to create a culture driven for SUCCESS. 

The picture is worth a thousand words! What a wonderful ceremony accompanied by our RVP Travis Young, Regional Director of Operations Debbie Hanchett and our Client Twania Sears, Executive Director.

Jaclyn Walker| ADDS | Morrison Community Living |­ Fountains at Franklin

November Heirloom

For November's Heirloom submission, we selected resident Betty Hutchinson's Pumpkin Mushroom soup!  It was inspired by the plentiful pumpkin and the mushrooms that were grown by many in her native state of Delaware. The soup was a perfect blend of sweet and savory and Betty had rave reviews after we served it.

               
Megg Geiger| Hospitality Manager| Morrison Community Living|

Brecon Village, Evangelical Homes

Celebration Tuesday at Cantata

Celebration Tuesday is in full effect! This past Tuesday, we at Cantata celebrated one of our employees, Maryah Lupa, baby shower. Our staff collected money for a gift card and we got to enjoy some delicious cake. It was nice to have the staff come together and celebrate.

Good luck to Maryah! We will miss you!

Lesya Shoorgot | Service Manager | Morrison Community Living

Christian Rest Home goes ON STAGE with Diversity and Inclusion

A quick lesson in Diversity with On Stage training at Showtime...We had a new associate stand at the front of the room, and asked all team members who liked to have their picture taken to line up behind her; and those that didn't like to be photographed to line up behind them.  Then we had the associates in front fan out to "shield" the camera shy.  They had fun, while learning a valuable lesson in team work!

Christina Bodanza, Director of Dining Services

Veteran's Day Dinner

Our Veteran's Day Dinner is always a great reminder of the amazing people we take care of each and every day.  This year, our WWII airplane mechanic Priscilla was surprised with candy and flowers from a fellow Marine!  #respect 

Christina Bodanza, Director of Dining Services

Turkey 6 ways at Western Home!

300 Independent Living Residents and guests at Western Home rely on us to provide a wonderful Thanksgiving buffet and we always come thru.  Starting Tuesday morning prior to Thanksgiving we cook Turkeys for our Thanksgiving feast.  With only a double stack convection and 2 still ovens we must begin the process well in advance.  So everything was ready to go in the oven Thursday morning....UNTIL

Lead cook Chuck Weber opens the walk in cooler to a warm breeze!  Yes, our walk in cooler went down sometime Wednesday.  Even though it was temping at 39 on Wednesday night, Thursday morning it was at 55.  The internal temp of all the food was also at 55 so we had NO TURKEY, NO HAM, NO PEELED POTATOES!  Potatoes, no problem, start peeling.  Ham, we were able to round up enough from our Assisted Living Communities to get us through.  Turkey though, that's a tough one.  We had prepared 18 birds that week for our IL residents.  From our Assisted Living we were able to get 4 that were most likely going to be extra.  So that left us with the simple task of getting 14 more birds and cooking them in under 2 hours....

Called our local grocery store to see if they had any extra turkeys they could sell me from their buffet...Nope.  He said all they could do was get me some fresh turkeys.  Got to the store and found a chef working there that used to work at Western Home.  He was able to get me 4 fully cooked, partially thawed, turkeys.  That should buy me a little time.  I grabbed 8 fresh birds and 2 foil wrapped frozen breasts and flew back to Western Home.

Back at the shop we fired up the grill, the fryer, the flat top, the steamer, the convection ovens, & the still ovens.  For the next 70 minutes we were cooking turkey with every piece of cooking equipment we have except for the microwave, and it was GOOD!  The best pieces were the ones that were started in the deep fryer and then finished on grill outside.  Great teamwork today at Western Home and as stressful as the situation was, it was a blast.  Thank you Teresa Gronowski, Norman Grant, Kristi Ponder, Loula Malone, and all the other employees that made this another successful Thanksgiving meal with many happy residents.

Randy Husted, CDM, CFPP

General Manager of Dining Services

Western Home Communities

Polish Themed Meal at Smith Crossing

Smith Crossing hosted a Polish themed dinner for residents in Independent Living. Kara Superczynski, hospitality manager/former Morrison sous chef, made homemade spinach and potato pierogis and Chef Davis Knight wowed them with his hand-made Polish sausage, a recipe he learned from his grandmother. 

The residents really enjoyed this home cooked meal and enjoyed seeing what Smith Crossing’s staff is made of!

Kara Superczynski

Dining Manager
Smith Crossing

November Diversity: Team Building

For this month's diversity, we worked on team building.  I think the staff enjoyed the program based on their participation.  We asked questions to help determine how we felt about our jobs, and how we expected to get them done with full staff and when we are short-staffed.  We talked about job expectations for all positions.  We have several new team members so the conversation helped to make them feel more comfortable.  By talking through all of the issues, the group said it made them feel closer as a team. 

Alan Miller

Weinberg Community

Veteran's Day at The Fountains at Franklin

Here at The Fountains at Franklin we celebrated Veteran's Day with our annual Veteran's Day Dinner.  We invite all of our Veterans to have dinner together, and each year it seems we have a larger gathering.  This year 45 Veterans from all of our areas, Independent and Assisted Living and Memory Care, enjoyed the camaraderie as they dined on 'walking tacos', fried shrimp and steak.  We had vets from Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, WWII and we even have a Tuskegee Airman!  Our associates joined in the spirit by dressing in Red, White and Blue or camouflage. One of our newest associates, Torriana is a 17 year old high school senior that joined the National Guard this year!

Cheryl Naftel, CDM| Director Dining Services | Morrison Community Living| The Fountains at Franklin

Pumkpin Contest at Cedars of Dexter

The stakes were a bit higher this year at the Cedars, our pumpkin decorating contest had some desirable prizes; 1st place was 2 tickets to our November Reserve dinner, featuring a wild game menu, 2nd prize was a gourmet gift basket shaped like the lower peninsula of the state of Michigan with all Michigan products in it, and 3rd prize was free desserts for a week.

1st Place Winner

2nd Place Winner

3rd Place Winner

We thank all of our residents who participated in the contest, great job!

We also had a great time with the Halloween Song Scramble, staff and residents alike were encouraged to descramble the titles of Halloween songs, cheating and collaboration were encouraged, just so long as people had fun, there were also cookies at stake.

Caleb L Cook | Chef Director | Morrison Community Living  | The Cedars of Dexter