Singing helps folks reclaim memories at Winooski’s senior center

The crowd sipped water, prepping their vocal cords as they watched the lyrics to “Silly Love Songs” by Wings, and a photo of its singer Paul McCartney, glow on the projector ahead of them.

As the piano track rang out, Karen McFeeters encouraged the over a dozen people gathered in the Winooski Senior Center that early October day to “boogie in your seats” as she danced around the room. The group swayed, held hands and belted lyrics they recognized. 

Mike, a McCartney fan who requested the song, tapped his foot to the beat in the front row, singing every word. 

That was the scene Oct. 4 at a session of “Singing for People With Memory Loss and Their Caregivers,” an event series created by McFeeters and Sheila Reid that just celebrated its one-year anniversary. The series is sponsored by Age Well, a nonprofit organization for senior citizens in northwestern Vermont. 

Reid, a 24/7 caregiver to a man named Ray, wanted a way for him to be involved in a musical activity.

“(He) has a lot of trouble speaking, but he can sing you Bob Dylan songs,” she said.

Back in 2014, McFeeters founded Aphasia Choir of Vermont, a choir for folks who’ve survived strokes and traumatic brain injuries. Reid and McFeeters, who worked at a hospital together for many years, decided to create a similar group for people with memory loss. 

“Music is one of the longest-lasting forms of memory because it’s mapped in so many different parts of the brain. So even when there’s deterioration, music can stick,” McFeeters said. 

“Many of them will remember this feeling. They remember the experience of enjoyment,” she later said.  

McFeeters starts each session by orienting the guests. She welcomes every attendee by name and goes over the date, time and location. The group starts with stretches, vocal warm-ups and scales. For the crowd last week, warming up with “Do Re Mi” from “The Sound of Music” was a big hit. 

Once everyone is loosened up, McFeeters usually strums her guitar, a gift a friend made out of a beam from an 1800s Vermont farmhouse. As she plays, the room lights up.

At her first sessions a year ago, she said, attendees would “come in kind of shuffling, or downcast, or quiet and vacant. And the minute we started singing, they’d be reaching out for their partner’s hand, dancing. A lot of memory, remembering and connection.” 

The crew’s setlist always has a theme. On Oct. 4, each song was by a ’60s musical act, such as The Beatles, Sonny and Cher, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. The crowd oohed and aahed when McFeeters harmonized with them during their rendition of the Fab Four’s “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”

“Wow, that’s something!” one attendee called out with delight. 

As the event wound down, the group sang “Happy Trails” by Roy Rogers. They hugged and clapped as they sang the lyrics to each other: “Until we meet again.” Before leaving the Winooski Senior Center, guests grabbed free Age Well water bottles, phone wallets and other swag from a folding table. 

McFeeters and Reid said the event is struggling to find a permanent location because the spot at the senior center is temporary. They used to sing at O’Brien Community Center before it was sold to Champlain Housing Trust.

“Winooski has been wonderful,” Reid told Community News Service. “That said, the senior center is a multi-use center. So for instance, in the winter, we can’t use it.”

Age Well employees are hoping to find a new spot soon because they know how much the event means to people with memory loss and their caregivers. 

“It’s a time that they can do something together, right? So, everybody’s singing,” said Jennifer Harbison, an Age Well employee manning the projector Oct. 4. “It’s not a caregiver taking their person to something. It’s both people participating on equal standing, so that’s really fun. It gives an opportunity to just kind of get out of that giver-taker dynamic.”

(Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.)