CUMBERLAND COUNTY, Pa. — It's International Friendship Day and a special relationship between a group of seniors made a retirement community in Hampden Township more like a home.
“I was living in California for 35 years and then I got to come back here and it’s just like home again,” said Rosemary Chicwak, a resident at Brookdale Grandon Farms.
Chicwak is one of six women part of a weekly poetry and art initiative club.
It was started by Lisa Farabelli in December of 2022.
Farabelli says the club helps them find their inner voice and friendship in a world where loneliness is reportedly as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
“You have to get involved. You can’t stay in your room,” said Farabrelli. “We have a like a girlship. We’ve really grown tight.”
“I just love this and every day I look forward to writing my poem and then getting it ready for Friday,” said Chicwak.
She added that she writes all of her poetry in her journal so she can give it to her family one day. Chicwak noted that though she won’t live forever, her words will.
Mary Kelsey says being in the poetry and art initiative club has not only impacted her emotionally but mentally as well. She believes the activities are keeping diseases like dementia at bay.
“It’s really being able to use your senile mental faculties and- as they say- you have to use it or lose it,” said Kelsey.
Over time, as the women got to know each other through words and paint, they came up with the affectionate name for their tribe, The Brookdale Girls... creating a family out of friends.