New Year is a time for celebrations, resolutions and memories.

We celebrate because we have survived another year. We make resolutions because most of us realized we need improvement. Finally, at this time, we cannot help but recollect the past.

Dodge Park Rest Home is pleased to continue its tradition of service to the community. This coming year (2017), it’s going to be a milestone year for Dodge Park Rest Home and Day Club, as we are celebrating our 50 years anniversary. Just recently, we were awarded a top senior care (among the top 67) facilities in the country and the only one in MA that receive the Caring Superstar award by Caring.com for 2017 (5th year in a row). This unique achievement, position Dodge Park Rest Home as one of the top long term care facilities in the country.

Our new state of art facility The Oasis At Dodge Park is now open and this new facility is well position to set a very new high standard in caring for those diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. A New Year is part of the cycle of life. In some countries it’s a promise of the buds on the trees and the snowdrops peeping out through slanting rain. In other places, of course, it is celebrated in the blazing sunshine.

Whatever about the climate, though, there is something about the beginning of a new year that makes us stop and think about the future and about what it holds for us.

If you are in London, New Year’s Eve means waiting for Big Ben to strike at midnight. If you are celebrating the Scottish Hogmanay it’s a case of waiting for a dark haired man to cross your doorstep at midnight. If you are in the U.S., you are likely to wait for New Year’s Day to celebrate with football games, mummer’s parades and rose festivals. The Chinese, of course, celebrate on a different date and with lots of fireworks. Wherever or whenever you celebrate, though, the arrival of a New Year is something special.

Has it ever occurred to you that the New Year is just like a birthday? It’s really only the start of a new era in your life. The New Year celebrations, of course, are on a more lavish scale than most birthday parties. The feeling of having something to celebrate, though, is exactly the same. So we can be excused at new year eve t if we too have a feeling of excitement. We have, after all, enjoyed a new beginning. We may be a bit battle scarred, we may have a few more grey hairs but at least we are alive and kicking and looking forward to the future. This time the feeling of anticipation is stronger because a year will surely mean something
special, some changes.

None of us can remember the beginning of the old millennium. Few of us can remember a hundred years ago. Not one of us can remember a thousand. We rely on historians to tell us all about the good and not so good old days. Yet even in our lifetime there have been truly amazing events. Some of these events brought misery and hardship but it is well worth thinking of the huge advances that benefited us so much.

Many of you will have telephoned friends and relatives to wish them a happy new year. You couldn’t have done that 500 years ago. Millions of people worldwide will have travelled by car to parties. They couldn’t have done that even 200 years ago. There were lots of people alive to celebrate because of the advances in medicines and vaccines. So a new year should make us thankful as well as joyful.

We should rejoice in the ingenuity and the talents of mankind. We should be looking forward to a time when men will conquer new frontiers of space and science. Perhaps we should be thinking of what we can do to make the New Year a better one for all of us.

That is not to say that we can all create cures for cancer or planes that won’t crash. We can though, as individuals, create an environment where initiative and drive are encouraged. We can influence Governments and groups even by writing just one letter of complaint or suggestion.

We can do marvelous things if we believe in them, even if it’s designing supermarket trolleys that go in the right direction. On this day let us toast our better tomorrows. So with upraised glasses we say Here’s to the future, another new year May it bring plenty, love and good cheer.

May we continue providing the best care for our residents and continue carry the Dodge Park name and reputation around the Commonwealth. We are all in this game together for a better tomorrow to all of us.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s toast please for the New Year. May it be a time when we make all our dreams come true. On behalf of all the management at Dodge Park Rest Home, we would like to wish all our residents, past and current family members, our medical team, employees, friends and supporter a happy New Year.

Micha Shalev, Ben Herlinger and Carrie Lindberg