Heart of Stark: Stark Library offers tailored services for senior citizens

In partnership with The Repository, every Monday, Stark Community Foundation highlights positive happenings in our community. Here’s to Good News Mondays!

From technology classes and fitness kits to helpful genealogists and more, Stark Library offers senior citizens in our community many services — each specifically tailored to meeting them where they’re at in their “golden years.”

Living a healthy lifestyle doesn't have to be a chore. Now, anyone can borrow one of the seven different Golden Gear kits, available to check out with a Stark Library card. Each kit focuses on a different theme of aging and includes activities and reading material.

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Themed Golden Gear collections include:

• “Let’s Get Physical” — For those looking to try a new form of exercise, this collection includes an instructional yoga DVD to help get blood pumping through stretching exercises, a resistance band and books on the practice of yoga.
• “Healthy Numbers” — For those looking to better understand and monitor their health, this collection includes books that discuss living a healthy lifestyle and using monitoring tools, with a corresponding pulse oximeter and blood pressure monitor.
• “Digging in the Dirt” — For those with green thumbs, this collection includes books about gardening, a curated playlist that aligns with the gardening theme and a flower painting kit.
• “Right Place, Right Time” — A kit that explores aging, this collection includes books on longevity and hand therapy balls to sooth arthritis and improve grip strength.
• “Back in My Day” — For those reminiscing on the golden years of television, this collection includes books about grandparenting and nostalgic DVDs of classic shows and musicals.
• “Bridging Generations” — A game night kit for the entire family to enjoy, this collection includes a board game, picture books and chapter books.
• “Demystifying Dementia” — A kit that explores the ways dementia affects the entire family, this collection includes a painting set, fidget toys to aid in memory retention and reading materials that guide younger family members to increase their understanding and provide caregivers with ways to assist loved ones with the condition.

Additionally, the library offers a variety of programs focused on useful and entertaining skills for senior citizens at many of its branch locations throughout Stark County each week — organized knitting clubs for participants of all skill levels, informational classes on sleep that teach ways to overcome age-related sleep problems, technology trainings that cover useful skills for using computers, phone and tablets and many more.

For homebound seniors who aren’t able to travel to a library location, Stark Library’s Books By Mail program delivers book selections straight to their door. The library staff gets to know the participant, and they keep a lookout for future items that may be of interest based on favorite genres, authors and series. This program keeps those at home connected to the resources at the library, with a personal touch.

Stark Library has a variety of large print books and preloaded audiobooks for anyone to borrow, and also offers genealogy services for those looking to boost their family or community history research with personalized, expert help. Exploring the lines of a family tree and discovering how past history connects present families can be an overwhelming task for many seniors — this service provides free research assistance and helps community members access databases and resources from all over the world.

Learn more about ways Stark Library is serving community members of all ages at www.starklibrary.org .

Stark Community Foundation helps individuals, families, businesses and nonprofits achieve their philanthropic goals through a variety of charitable funds and strategic initiatives. Ranked in the top 10% of community foundations in the country, the foundation and its family of donors have granted more than $250 million to nonprofits since 1963. Learn more at www.starkcf.org .

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Heart of Stark: Stark Library offers tailored services for senior citizens