Creativity Gets Free Rein at Fox Run

Margo Gerber, who lives at Fox Run, a senior living community managed by Erickson Living in Novi, Mich. has taken advantage of the past year to exercise her creativity.

“Fox Run employees set up a tent, and you could walk down once a week to pick up a puzzle if you wanted one to work on in your apartment,” says Margo. “I finished my first puzzle last year and just kept going.”

Margo, who’s earned the nickname the “puzzle queen” from staff, kept a steady pace of assembling puzzles and finished her 100th puzzle in February. Her completed projects range from 300-piece puzzles to 1,000-piece puzzles. Some puzzles are done in a day; most take up to a week to assemble.

A cost-effective hobby

“I haven’t bought a single puzzle,” says Margo. “Fox Run has a good supply of them, and friends have loaned several to me. People caught on to the fact that I’m doing puzzles. I have a friend who lives here who’s also doing puzzles. When I run across one I think she might enjoy, I leave it on the shelf outside her apartment and she does the same for me.”

“Fox Run has been wonderful,” says Margo, who moved to the Novi community in 2017. “I’m so thankful I’m here. Through everything, they’ve provided all we need.”

Margo isn’t the only one to take up a project in the past year. Community Resources Coordinator Megan Smith is co-organizing a pen pal project with Ryan Jackson, a teacher in Oregon and grandson of Fox Run residents Fred and the late Nan Wiegand.

“We were looking for a community service project for our students,” says Jackson, a learning coordinator, science specialist and lab instructor at the Bridge Charter Academy, a personalized learning school and public charter school. “Students submitted proposals for suggested projects, they voted on the proposals, and pen pals won by a landslide.”

The next task was choosing a location for the receiving end of the students' pen pal invitations. “The kids all agreed they wanted to exchange letters with people outside of Oregon,” says Jackson. “When it came down to it, Fox Run was the best choice. I’ve been there many times to visit my grandparents. It’s large and has strong community relations.”

Hand-written letters

Jackson contacted Smith, who shared his enthusiasm for the idea. To launch the project, Bridge Charter Academy (BCA) students made a video introducing the initiative to air on Fox Run’s closed circuit television channel. Initially, BCA students created “Who Am I?” poems, which Jackson mailed to Smith to post on a bulletin board at Fox Run.

“When a resident chose a poem from the bulletin board, they registered it with me, and I handed them their first letter from that student,” says Smith. “We had 30 student-resident pairs who wrote back and forth.”

Jackson says the students were enthusiastic about their new correspondence. “These relationships are cool because they get insight into another’s life. They get to share what it’s like to be a teenager now, and they get to hear from someone who was a teenager in the 50s or 60s," says Jackson.

Want to learn more about how residents at Fox Run pursue hobbies and stay engaged? Call 1-800-262-7315 or request more information today.

About Fox Run: Fox Run, one of 20 continuing care retirement communities managed by Erickson Living®, is situated on a scenic 108-acre campus in Novi, Michigan. The not-for-profit community of more than 1,300 residents and 750 employees is governed by its own board of directors, affiliated with National Senior Campuses, who provide independent financial and operational oversight of the community. Additional information can be found at FoxRunNovi.com.

Written by Sara Martin