Nursing home residents strut their stuff in Halloween fashion show

BERLIN, Md. – There were plenty of treats, and no tricks on Thursday at the Berlin Nursing Home, as residents showed off their scary good costumes at their fashion show.

“I believe wholeheartedly that people need to look forward to getting up in the morning and having something exciting to look forward to,” Jo Ann Davis, the activity director at the home, said.

So on Halloween, residents did just that: they woke up excited and looking forward to their Halloween fashion show. But the glamorous event took a lot of preparation.

“We started about a month and a half ago,” Davis said.

But those weeks of preparation were still a blast, as residents put their own special touches on the runway they strutted down.

“Doing the runway, we had to color, draw everything, and color it,” Dolores Kenny, President of the residents, said.

“You could just see from week to week so much coloring was getting done, it was so crazy, and then for it all to come together like this, I mean that runway looked amazing,” Emily Meadows, a volunteer at the home, said.

And the hard work paid off. On Thursday residents were smiling ear to ear, watching bees, gypsies, and cat ladies stroll down the runway.

It was a scary good time that brought residents closer together and lifted their spirits.

“Absolutely tons of fun, and it’s been nice to look forward to,” Kenny said.

“A whole lot of fun, we always have fun,” another resident, Mary Hutchison, added.

And that fun is what it’s all about.

“We need to keep people together, and social, because that’s what it’s all about, we want to fight that depression and we want people to feel a part of a family, regardless of where it is that they live,” Davis said.