Senior Wellness Support Program

Hmong Youth & Parents United's Senior Day Program is focused on empowering Hmong elders to live healthier lives! With COVID-19, we understand that our senior population are at risk so we have moved the program online. This program takes place over Zoom for an hour from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. every Monday. With the online session, our Seniors are able to exercise, learn English words to help identify their feelings, learn coping skills, and have fun together during this hard time. 

We invite all seniors over the age of 55 years to attend. For additional questions, please fill out the form below to be contacted by Kelley Lee, Senior Day Program Interim Coordinator. You can also contact her at 530-330-9529, kelley.lee@hypu.org

Weekly Schedule:

​Mondays:

​​​10:00 a.m. - Wellness Check In
10:10 a.m. - Stretches and Exercise
10:30 a.m. - Activity and Discussion
10:50p.m. - Wellness Check Out

Our Activities

Mental Wellness

According to data from the National Institutes of Health, nearly one in five Americans live with mental illness. Seniors engaged in weekly virtual check ins to gain a sense of support from peers, explore their self capabilities, and learned positive coping skills to improve overall mental health. 

• Seniors learned different form of self-expressions to transfer the energy from their thoughts and feelings into another form
• Seniors found common ground with their peers and learned more about one another, helped one another build a sense of community
• Seniors recognized how their attitudes and thoughts influence their feelings and behavior
• Seniors utilized positive thinking to increase self-confidence 
• Seniors independently engaged in self-care activities

Art & Expression

Art is a form of therapy that promotes health among the elderly. A way to creatively express, it gives elders a sense of control that they might not always feel, which allows them to develop individual mastery. Boosting both behavioral and cognitive conditions that improve self-esteem and increases social interaction. In our program art is a daily activity. This includes coloring, drawing, origami, painting, beading, paper crafts, and even vision boarding. 

Health Education

Healthy living starts with healthy habits. We approach health from a holistic perpective, promoting physical health and mental well-being through hands-on learning. Each morning we start off the day with stretching and exercise as a group. Alongside this we also host health-focused group discussions, workshops, and presentations. Some of our collaborations in the past have included educational discussions on issues like cancer, diabetes, high-blood pressure, and high cholesterol. We've also hosted various presentations with The Healing Life Center, Meals on Wheels, and the Hmong Nurse Association. This summer, we partnered with H.L.U.B. Clinic for monthly health screenings. Currently, we are working with Dignity Health to host free classes on diabetes in the Hmong language, through the Diabetes & Empowerment Education Program.

Nutrition

We provide morning snacks and a healthy lunch on a daily basis. Our lunches are prepared by staff and include brown rice, locally grown Hmong vegetables, along with chicken/fish/pork/or turkey catered and donated by Jimmy's Deli Soul Food & Hmong Cuisine. Nutrition is a topic often incorporated into our health education. Currently, we are working on a Healthy Hmong Recipe Book with recipes from the elders themselves. This summer we also started a small community garden which provided squash, cucumbers, herbs, cherry tomatoes, and fresh chili peppers to the kitchen.

Games and Social Activities

Games and group activities encourage socializing. We play a variety of active and critical-thinking games like corn hole, tuj lub, chess, charades, and even bingo -- which help many of the seniors familiarize themselves with numbers and counting. To help them become more familiar with letters, we've taught them how to do word search sheets both in Hmong and English. Seniors are encouraged to participate in our daily activities to win raffle tickets, which are then entered into a monthly drawings to win prizes!

Fieldtrips

Occassionally we are able to take our seniors on field trips! In June, a group of us attended a WWE Smackdown show at the Golden 1 Center thanks to generous ticket donations from the City of Sacramento. In August, we gave our seniors, many of whom have never received a formal education, the opportunity to tour Sacramento State University. The trip was made possible in collaboration with Project Hmong. Learn more about it by clicking here!