SWAMPSCOTT — Recent Swampscott High School graduate Ariana Casella has been given the Girl Scouts of the USA’s highest award, the Girl Scout Gold Award, for implementing a program that had high school student volunteers spend more than 80 hours doing social visits with local dementia patients.
Casella initiated the project in January 2019, in her 10th year as a Girl Scout, and she and others provided weekly visits with residents with dementia at the Bertram House of Swampscott assisted living facility on Humphrey Street.
“As someone with a grandmother who has been suffering from dementia, I’ve seen my fair share of nursing homes as well as assisted living facilities,” Casella said.
Casella said, in her experience, assisted living facility works “put their best foot forward and work extremely hard,” but “there will always be those who do not get the socialization they need to stimulate their brains and get their gears turning.”
At visits at the Bertram House, volunteers, including herself, Swampscott High School National Honor Society members, and members of her confirmation class at St John the Evangelist parish, provided patients communication, company, and mental stimulation, “playing bingo,doing arts and crafts,cooking, and spending time in general,” Casella said.
“In a short period of time, I, along with my fellow volunteers, fell in love with the residents. It was so heartwarming that they were always so excited to see us and greeted us with open arms,” Casella said.
Casella was awarded the Gold Award by the local Girl Scouts council, Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts.
Casella also set up a website for her project, https://makingfriendsgolda.wixsite.com/elderly-loneliness. The website gives tips for conversation starters with people with dementia, the first of which is “join the journey.”
In Casella’s words, “joining the journey means going along with the conversation. If they keep mentioning that they are looking for their mother, when obviously that is not possible, go along with it and let them take the conversation in that direction. Do not correct them.” Tips like this allow for dementia patients to communicate openly during conversations, which is “vital” in n combatting the disease, Casella said.
Casella plans to attend the University of Vermont to pursue a degree in secondary education. She said Girl Scouting has been about “putting time and effort into bettering your own community on however small of scale.”
