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If you’re looking for ways to keep your senior adults engaged and inviting their friends, check out these 5 community building events.
Host These 5 Senior Outreach Events To:
- Engage the senior adults in your church.
- Build relationships.
- Give your seniors an opportunity to share and use their gifts & talents.
- Share the love of God with your community.
Senior adults are more active than ever, and they have the time to engage in events and programs. Focus on hosting some outreach events that address topics specific to senior living. It is a great way to connect with a vital part of your local community!
Ask your small church’s older members about their needs. Community? Fellowship? Physical activities? Information? Things to combat depression & loneliness? Then work to find solutions to start meeting those needs.
Senior Adult Outreach Events For Small Churches
Senior Seminar
Gather experts from different areas of the aging industry, and ask them to speak about their various fields. Make sure to have time for questions and give each representative a table set up to hand out literature and give more information.
Some of the experts you may want to ask to participate could be an Alzheimer’s and dementia expert, someone to discuss placement options for the aging, a representative from a retirement community, assisted living, and a local senior center. An elder care attorney can answer questions about legal planning, trusts, and wills. A financial planner can help people navigate costs and anticipate issues. Don’t forget to include someone from an adult daycare center and someone from an in-home care program.
Contact your local police department and see if they have a representative from The Alzheimer’s Association Safe Return® program or something like it that helps you track a person with dementia if they are lost.
Ask the senior adults in your church to be greeters and registration attendants. Also, ask them to be part of the team that provides hospitality coffee and pastries in the morning and lunch after the event.
Engage some others to make gift bags for each guest. Ask speakers if they would like to donate items for the bags, and then you can add more to finish them out. Don’t forget to include an invitation to your church and your next senior event in the bags.
Classic Car Show
Car shows are a great event for everyone; many of our senior adults are car collectors or at least classic car admirers!
Contact a local car club and invite them to host a show at your church property. Not only will you have the opportunity to reach out to your attendees, but also to the car club members.
Rally your senior members to volunteer to be car club liaisons, welcoming them as guests, showing them to their spaces, and offering them hospitality.
Keep the car owners happy with food and water.
Ask those in your church who are not senior adults to help as well. They can man the registration table, food stations, and church information table.
Turn the event into a party atmosphere by offering free hot dogs in paper hot dog trays and making popcorn.
Set up a fun photo backdrop and take pictures of your seniors, their friends, and even guest car owners.
Walking Club
Invite local seniors to meet at your church and join your walking club. Have a designated journey, map out different length routes, measure how long the distances are and have the information available for your participants.
Walk together and encourage your senior church family members to use the time to build relationships with members of your community. Make connections and build trust as you are walking.
When you return from your walk, provide fruit and water for the participants.
At the end of each season, celebrate your success and host a party with a luncheon and a speaker. You could give out awards for most improved health, most miles walked, etc.
Promote your walking club at local senior centers, on online social media, and on your church website.
Offer these punch cards. Every time one of your participants walks with your club, punch a hole in the card. Offer an award after the card gets 10 punches in it.
Senior Health Fair
A Health Fair is an excellent service to provide to seniors in your church and community. Healthcare issues can be a concern for senior adults, and the opportunity to check in with several healthcare providers at once is a huge win for everyone!
Speak to a community relations person at your local hospital about the resources they offer. Reach out to geriatric specialists, hearing specialists, and others who focus on senior medicine issues. A local pharmacist could be a good resource for home health care nurses to do blood pressure checks. Nutritionists can also provide information and practical tips. Your local gym or fitness center is another great resource.
Ask local firefighters to join the fun and donate smoke detectors. Check with your local ambulance company and see if they will have a unit displayed, and talk about being prepared for medical emergency responses.
Check with your community aging organization for information on senior adult ride services to doctor visits or treatment sessions. Most of these services are free or at a reduced rate. Have someone from that group set up a display to inform your attendees about their services. Take it a step further and think, “Could your church offer this kind of service as a ministry?”
A local counselor may offer a printable on ways to combat depression.
Have Fun During Your Health Fair
When attendees arrive at your Health Fair, have greeters manning a welcome booth where attendees can receive a name badge and a tote bag to put all their information and giveaways in as they walk through the Health Fair. (If you have bags with your church logo, use them. Otherwise, ask a local business to donate the bags.)
At your health fair, set up a church booth and focus on “spiritual health.” Ask your pastor to meet and greet people. Have a devotional book giveaway, and provide information about your church and its ministries. Set up a prayer booth to offer prayer for those who desire it. Encourage some of your senior members to work in the prayer booth.
Set up a hospitality table with healthy snacks like bottles of water, fruit cups, trail mix, or granola bars. Invite your younger members to volunteer to run the table. This is a great way to encourage intergenerational ministry.
Not only are you providing a wonderful event for your community and seniors in your church, but you are also showing people that you care about their physical health in addition to their spiritual health.
Seniors Arts & Crafts Show
Many of our senior adults have hobbies in arts and crafts. They enjoy making things and expressing themselves in a creative fashion. Provide them with a way to show and sell their wares.
Most home artists and crafters don’t have enough inventory to invest in participating in a craft fair. The cost of the entry fee can be prohibitive.
Your small church can host an Arts & Crafts show for senior adults to bring their projects to sell at no cost to them! (If you don’t have many senior adults in your church, team up with other churches in your area.)
This is a wonderful and fun opportunity for home hobbyists to show their talents to the world while being able to make a little profit. The event also benefits your community as many people enjoy finding one-of-a-kind handmade items to give as gifts!
Put the word out through social media, local senior centers, and your own senior adults.
Have a predetermined amount of vendors that you know you can fit in your space and provide a registration form.
Put together a team to take care of all the details of your event promotion and advertising, set-up and tear-down, vendor relations, guest hospitality, and church information booth.
Have volunteers available when your vendors arrive to help carry their items into the display area. Provide tables and chairs and ask vendors to bring their own table coverings and display pieces. All vendors should have their items priced and their own banks for handling all sales.
Host this event around the holidays! Decorate and really play up the season! Also, make sure to have invitations available to both vendors and attendees about all your Christmas services.
For A Holiday Event
Make Christmas cookies, a hot cocoa bar, and popcorn at your hospitality table. Providing hot soups and chili for a simple luncheon would be a great idea! These are also great ways for the senior folks in your church to be involved and to work alongside others in your church family.
What about having a photo backdrop for folks to stop in and snap a selfie? Having a gift basket giveaway is a great way to get people to drop their names and email in a basket so you can send follow-up emails to continue the relationship with attendees.
Encourage your church family to attend this event and support these senior artists and crafters. Make flyers that they can bring to their workplace to promote your event.
Talk To A Local Newspaper
They may want to do a piece about it since it is a very unique thing. Daily Facebook posts leading up to your event and featuring each individual artist or crafter is a great way to stir interest and excitement.
On the day of your event, put your best foot forward and make your vendors and your guests feel very welcome! Make sure to encourage all your volunteers to take time to connect with your vendors; build relationships with these senior members of your community to realize just what a treasure they are!
Plan A Senior Outreach Event Today
Start planning some outreach events for your senior adult audience. Speak to your senior adults, and get them excited and on board to try some of these events. Tell them to invite friends! Watch the joy on their faces and see the passion in their involvement as they come to realize that your small church really cares about seniors, not just the ones in your church, but in your community as well!
Read More
Strengthen Your Small Church With Your Senior Adults
5 Tips To Engage Older Congregation Members
Dinners For Six: Build Deeper Community In Your Small Church
Strengthen Your Christian Community Even When You Can’t Be Together
