The Sunday following Labor Day has been designated National Grandparents Day. Information on it is found at the official web site: http://www.grandparents-day.com/

One of the concerns is to encourage the visitation and support of the confined elderly:

"Along with Grandparents Day, we should not forget shut-ins and those in nursing homes who are unable to be with their families or have no families. Every effort must be made to include these people in the mainstream through cards, community projects and visitation at times other than just holidays. There are many, many elderly who are not fortunate enough to have family nearby. The need is increasing every day to fill the void of their loneliness. In every neighborhood, there are elderly who would love an opportunity to be a Foster Grandparent. Parents, churches, schools, and senior organizations, help children to adopt a grandparent!"

On our web site we have some information that may be useful if you decide to incorporate National Grandparents Day in your regular ministry visit this Sunday. Here are the resources:

1. Helpful Hints for Families, Churches, and Homeschoolers
2. "Letter from an eighty year old woman to her children": http://www.faithfulfriends.org/letter.html - You might make a copy of this as a bulletin insert or request to read it aloud before the congregation.

3. Print out The Beatitudes on Aging and consider handing out to residents after reading aloud. A copy in Microsoft Word format can be downloaded here.

4. Make an bulletin insert from free resources on The Faithful Friends Website: http://www.faithfulfriends.org/ngpdinsert.html Please be sure to personalize it for your ministry. You might also use this as a Public Service Announcement to your local newspaper or radio/ TV station. We have had success in doing this with our local Moody Radio Station.

5. Selected Devotionals for the elderly: http://www.faithfulfriends.org/resources.html - These are excellent for being read during your nursing home service.

6. Guidelines for visits to nursing home residents rooms: http://www.faithfulfriends.org/visit.html - You might encourage church members to visit friends, relatives, and church members. See the paragraph above taken from the National Grandparents Day Web Site.

7. Announce a showing of "A Song for Grandmother Video": http://www.faithfulfriends.org/video.html This video as a great recruitment tool!

8. Here are some excellent resources for Teachers and Homeschoolers.

9. Visit Annie's Grandparents Day Welcome Page.

10. Send a National Grandparents Day Greeting Card from 123greetings.com

We would really like to encourage you to try to utilize some of this information in your ministry and maybe next year consider asking your church to address this from the pulpit and with an insert in the worship bulletin.

Also, you might try emailng a Public Service Announcement (PSA) to your local media like Christian & Secular Radio Stations, TV, and Newspapers. You can generally find the correct email address from their web site. Here is the PSA that we utilized this year. Please feel free to use and modify it as you like.

Public Service Announcement - National Grandparents Day - September 13, 2015

The Sunday following Labor Day, Sept. 13, 2015, has been designated as National Grandparents Day. This Holiday originated in 1978 with the desire of Marian McQuade, a housewife from West Virginia, to champion the cause of lonely elderly in nursing homes. Of the over 2 million Americans in nursing homes, statistics show that 60% of the residents never have a visitor. Never!

We at Faithful Friends would like to call attention to this great need and to encourage visiting someone in a nursing home, perhaps even a friend or a relative. It requires no special skills or talents. All that is needed is a desire to reach out to a "Forgotten Generation". We have highlighted this National Holiday on our extensive web site at:

http://www.faithfulfriends.org/grandparents.html

The official National Grandparents Day Web Site is located at:

http://www.grandparents-day.com/

The residents of our local care centers are just sitting there waiting for someone to visit!

Over the past 20 years, we have been interviewed by local and national media on this subject and would look forward to hearing from your organization.