VITALIA Active Adult Community® – Solon Showing Their Colors During Pride Month

In celebration of Pride Month this June, Arrow Senior Living is looking at The Pride

Flag, a symbol that is a representation of the forward movements to support and celebrate those in the LGBTQIA+ community. This important piece of the community has a meaning that is described by the colors included.

Red represents life and passion among many cultures. Orange represents healing and is a fun and celebratory color. Yellow is a symbol for sunlight and is said to stimulate new ideas and thoughts. Green is synonymous with nature, a healing place, also associated with prosperity and growth. Blue represents serenity and the ability to feel calm. Purple is the color of spirit, thought to connect us to the spiritual realm.

At VITALIA Active Adult Community® – Solon Solon, OH, we feel most connected to yellow. This color stimulates new ideas and thoughts, and our residents are continuously coming up with new ideas and programs that benefit our community and enrich our resident’s lives. Yellow is also a symbol of sunlight, and our residents love to soak in the sun in our courtyard, on their balconies, and you will often find residents walking around on our beautiful grounds.

It is my job as a Resident Services Director to make the community a safe place to live and work for our residents. I have an open-door policy and truly listen to the wants, needs, and concerns of the residents and apply these ideas to our events calendar. I apply the idea of working with a “servant’s heart” to best care for our residents.

In our community, we know that each of our residents have come from different lifestyles and backgrounds. As such, we work to maintain that diverse culture across both residents and staff with targeted programming and staff education efforts. Arrow Senior Living has launched a resident-led Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) speaker series for employee and resident education. Residents interview speakers who represent some of the relevant topics of the day related to diversity, equity, and inclusion ranging from non-binary people and use of pronouns to Juneteenth history. Through our tradition’s council, which coordinates core resident and employee cultural celebrations and education, we work actively to celebrate diversity within our community. This has created a means for residents and employees to join in recognition of each other. The road ahead is to ensure that diversity and inclusion is not just an initiative. Moving forward requires necessary conversations to address discomfort and to open dialogue on important perspectives. This helps to ensure that we are providing not only an enjoyable place to retire, but one where seniors can feel enriched, safe, and excited about life!