Tag Archive for: Activities

Musician Lee Moyer, singing holiday songs for Homeland residents, added a unique twist to one familiar tune.

“You’ll recognize it. I just changed the words a little bit,” he said as he introduced his next number. “This is from 1954. I think Perry Como had a big hit.”

Then he launched into singing, “Oh, there’s no place like Homeland for the holidays.”

Lee is a popular entertainer at Homeland, brought in as much for his engaging ways with residents as for his multiple musical talents. The proprietor of Moyer’s One-Man Orchestra presents regular programs that blend the American songbook with a kind of interactive trivia about the songwriters of the 20th century and the times they lived in.

The Hershey native discovered his love for music as a youngster. His mother cultivated his interest in music and played trumpet in his high school jazz band and, as an adult, began playing at events throughout the region.

He learned to play the keyboard while first working at Marty’s Music Store in Lebanon, Pennsylvania – a store he would later own. In those early years, he realized he could play the cornet and the keyboard simultaneously. He has honed an act playing rhythm and bass on the keyboard with his left hand, while he plays the cornet – smaller and lighter than a trumpet – with his right.

His feet get in the act, too. On the Monday after Christmas, he was performing in the Homeland Chapel, sitting in front of a poinsettia display. His left foot tapped a tambourine sitting on the floor, providing seasonally appropriate jingle-bell sounds when needed. (Due to masking requirements, he could not play the cornet.)

At age 81, Lee realizes he is near the age range of the Homeland residents who love his act and the songs he performs.

“They do remember things from almost 100 years ago,” he said. He chooses songs from the 1920s through about 1980 – songs popularized with the progression of the new technology called the radio, then motion pictures, Broadway, the Big Band Era, Elvis Presley and the dawn of rock and roll.

He has been performing for nursing homes since the early 1990s. Homeland has been on his circuit most of those three decades.

“The audience is very attentive,” he said. “They’re happy to see you come. They pay attention for the whole hour.”

That attentiveness was evident on this Monday; about 16 residents happily engaged with the program. Lee provides song sheets so the residents can sing along, but with a program stocked with holiday favorites – “White Christmas,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” – most didn’t need much prompting.

Each song was introduced with a bit of backstory and trivia. For “Silver Bells,” he said he was sharing President John F. Kennedy’s favorite Christmas song, written in 1949, “and we’ve been singing it ever since then, 72 years ago.”

“I think it’ll make it,” quipped a resident sitting in the front row.

As he introduced a song about a reindeer, Lee asked, “What was his name?”

“Rudolph!” said the audience.

Lee kept going.

“And he had a . . .”

“Red nose!” said residents.

Lee added that “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” hit the airwaves was 1948, the year in which “a very famous baseball player died. He was the most famous baseball player of all time. Do you remember?”

“Babe Ruth!”

With each song, residents needed no prompting to sing along and tap their feet. They greeted the end of each song in the brisk program with enthusiastic applause. Lee figures he has developed 50 different programs that he can choose from, tailored to audiences and the season.

While the pandemic sidelined many musicians, he has been able to continue playing when conditions warrant because he is a one-man orchestra. He was well-positioned to perform solo, without the need for group rehearsals or performances.

Moyer is well-known in local music circles, playing with such groups over the years as the Lebanon Community Concert Band and the Lebanon Big Swing Band. His playing for shows with such legends as Gordon Macrae, Jonathan Winters, and Ed McMahon puts Homeland residents in the orbit of some of the entertainment greats of their lifetimes.

The theme of being with loved ones for the holidays returned with the standard, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” It became very popular in World War II, he reminded residents, when American servicemen and women were far from home. Now, he said, Homeland residents are already there.

“’I’ll Be home for Christmas’,” he said. “You’re here. Your home is Homeland.”

After Homeland resident Joanna Kaisin colored an intricate scene of sun and leaves in green, yellow, and orange, she chose purple for the border.

“It’s a happy color,” she said.

A “spark of creativity” surged through Homeland Center for September’s National Assisted Living Week. The 2019 theme, “A Spark of Creativity,” recognized the potential for personal care residents, staff, and families to unleash their inner artists and find such benefits as improving cognitive and sensory-motor functions, building self-esteem, and reducing stress.

Homeland Center embraced the theme with an array of creative ventures, bringing new ideas to its weekly art classes and introducing an initiative that benefits hospitalized children.

On a Saturday morning, residents gathered in the Homeland solarium to decorate bags for Caitlin’s Smiles. The organization is named after Caitlin Hornung, a Harrisburg-area girl who spent the last years of her short life in and out of hospitals, getting treatment for a malignant brain tumor.

Young Caitlin’s spirit never wavered, and she found her greatest joy in creating art. After her death in 2000, her mother, Cheryl Hornung vowed to bring the same relief from pain and fear to hospitalized children. Today, Caitlin’s Smiles recruits an army of volunteers to prepare craft kits for children and teens. They are distributed to hospitals throughout Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, and other states.

Those craft kits are packaged in “Bags of Smiles” that start out as plain white but are decorated with love by caring individuals. That’s where Homeland residents enter the picture. Every other Saturday, they are now decorating bags that will deliver cheer to a hospitalized child somewhere.

The opportunity to brighten the day of a sick child gives residents new purpose and a feeling of contributing, says Homeland Activities Assistant Lateefah Battle.

“When you tell them about Caitlin’s Smiles and give them a bag to decorate, it brings out more of their energy,” she says. “They say, ‘We’re doing it for the children.’”

Resident Ann Soder agrees that her bag was sending best wishes to a sick child somewhere.

“It’s a good project for us to do, that children have cancer, and maybe we can bring some brightness into their day and show that we care for them,” she says. “Our wishes for them is to keep up their treatments, and we pray that you will be well.”

Ann started by pasting her bag with stickers declaring “Think happy, be happy,” and “Good things take time.” Then she picked up a blue marker and drew a kite flying in the air.

“Well, somewhat of a kite,” she said. While the residents might disparage their artistic talents, they love pouring their hearts into their imaginative works. Homeland staff and volunteers provide the encouragement residents need to nurture their creative instincts.

Earlier in National Assisted Living Week, a weekly art class offered a new idea – the chance to contribute to a mural. Under the direction of art instructor Taqiyya Muhammad, residents colored inspirational sayings – “Believe you can, & you will,” “You are amazing” – intended to hang as a mural-style grouping in Homeland’s popular Main Gathering Room.

At that session in Homeland’s Lick Library, resident Joanna Kasian says she’s not a good artist. “I would put eyes, probably on each finger I draw,” she says. But that doesn’t stop her from bringing her inspirational motto – “Believe in yourself” – to life with yellows and greens and purples.

Homeland residents enjoy their artistic endeavors, says Muhammad.

“They do amazing work in art class, our little hour,” she says. “It seems like it goes by so fast.” Some are so enthusiastic about their pieces that, “depending on how intricate or how detailed they want to make it, they say they’ll come back and finish it next week.”

Resident Gloria Mineur also admits that she has no artistic ability, but she’s pleased with her efforts at adding colorful details to a drawing declaring “Love One Another.”

Mary Graves appreciated what she and her fellow Homeland residents were accomplishing. She decorated her bag with a yellow sunflower, sprouting from a pot bejeweled with sparkly stickers.

“The kids will like that,” she says.

A regular lunchtime renowned guest, Robert Lau performs at Homeland Center.

It’s a sunny Wednesday and Homeland residents are enjoying a lunch of salmon patty or country-fried chicken in the Main Dining room as a pleasant string of tunes floats from the piano in the corner. The songs are familiar standards and Broadway classics – “Misty,” “People,” “Maria,” a medley from “The Sound of Music.”

Residents applaud each number. Some sing the words. Others converse quietly among themselves to a gentle musical accompaniment. While they clearly enjoy the music, only a few realize the pianist was an award-winning music teacher at Lebanon Valley College and Penn State Harrisburg, as well as a composer with a storied career.

Dr. Robert Lau comes to Homeland once a month during lunchtime to play a selection of tunes on Homeland’s Steinway grand piano, a gift from a former resident.

“I always enjoy him very much,” said resident Phoebe Berner. “He’s an accomplished musician.”

Lau grew up in a musical family and knew as a child that he would pursue a career in music. He started playing the violin at age 7. By his teen years, Lau was concertmaster for the Harrisburg Symphony Youth Orchestra. He earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from Lebanon Valley College and supported himself by playing piano at local nightspots. He earned master’s and doctoral degrees in theoretical studies from Eastman School of Music and Catholic University.

His composing career was inspired by a guest artist at a conference who suggested he try his hand at writing. When a former LVC student played one of his pieces for a master’s-degree recital in New York City, an eminent organist on the judging panel called Lau to say he wanted to have it published.

In total, Lau has written more than 500 pieces of music, mostly choral anthems and keyboard pieces. Around 2013, his best-selling “Sing To the Lord A New Song” made the American Choral Directors Association’s list of 10 anthems that members should know – a “meaningful moment,” he says, “because it came from my peers.”

Lau’s latest work, based on one of the biblical Psalms, premieres in April 2019 as a commission for Voices of the Valley’s 40th-anniversary concert. A touring choir at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome sang another piece — an accomplishment requiring the stamp of approval from the Vatican itself.

While some classical musicians frown on playing lighter fare, Lau enjoys works by Broadway and pop composers. In retirement, he plays the organ for churches throughout the region. He began playing for Homeland’s residents in 2016.

Residents, he adds, are “very generous with their comments.” On this particular day, resident Rita Sperling approached Lau following his performance.

“I close my eyes, and I could see my mother play,” she told him. “When I played, it never sounded like that. My fingers didn’t work as well as theirs. It’s enjoyable when you can close your eyes and see your mother play piano.”

That is a typical reaction, Lau says.

“They’re such wonderful people,’’ he said. “Somebody always comes up to me and tells me how much they appreciate it. That makes it all worthwhile.”