Siena Apartments and Versa at Civita Communities Come Together For First Harvest Festival Potluck
SAN DIEGO, CA - At the end of October, the Siena Apartments community, located in the heart of Mission Valley, celebrated their very first Harvest Festival Potluck. The potluck marked an important milestone for the Siena community and Jelena Predojevic, our PSCDC Resident Services Coordinator for the Siena community. The Harvest Festival Potluck celebration was the first PSCDC hosted service to have great attendance in Siena Apartments, and was the first exposure to PSCDC hosted services for many of the community's residents!
Providing resident services for a newly established community is difficult, as rapport and awareness must be built between residents and Resident Services Coordinator. Jelena has been working hard in advertising and inviting residents into the community room to take part in her residential services which includes art classes, ESL classes, computer literacy classes, health and wellness workshops, and resource referrals tailored to resident requests. Beyond educational and resource-driven services, Jelena has been organizing community-building opportunities as a means to introducing herself and PSCDC to the residents, with the Harvest Festival Potluck as one of those events.
The Harvest Festival Potluck was also special for the fact that it was a community event that had residents from two different properties invited to attend the potluck together! Jelena notified another neighboring PSCDC community that she serves, Versa at Civita, to join the event in Siena Apartments' community room. The Harvest Festival Potluck was advertised at both properties by Jelena through her calendars, flyers, and group emails sent prior to the event.
During the potluck, Siena Apartments' community room was beautifully decorated by Jelena. Some residents even showed up wearing Halloween costumes! Residents from both communities seemed very happy and willing to socialize and have fun together as they shared food, conversations, and lots of laughs. San Diego PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly), a local partner that we have been working closely with for years, were also invited to the potluck to introduce themselves to our residents and provide some information on the services and resources they can offer. San Diego PACE helps our residents with medical care, social services, nutritional meals, recreational activities, and much more. Residents have a wide variety of food to choose from during the potluck, with residents and Jelena providing sandwich rolls, fruits, a veggie platter, lots of delicious sweet treats, and much more.
The resounding success for having the communities come together has changed the way Jelena will conduct services at both properties.
"For the first time, I invited residents of two different properties to come and attend together," Jelena states. "I will continue with that practice by inviting the residents from both Versa and Siena to join the educational or financial presentations at one of the properties, if it's not possible to schedule at both. It was a great opportunity for me as a coordinator to introduce my work through the services and programs that we offer, and to represent PSCDC."
With the welcoming atmosphere of the Harvest Festival Potluck breaking the ice for the Siena Apartments residents, Jelena is hoping that Siena residents are now more open to attending future events, and that the upcoming Fall Potluck she has planned at Versa at Civita will have some visitors from Siena Apartments stopping by to say hello to their new friends and neighbors.
