At St. James Place Life Enrichment Is More Than A Job — It’s A Calling
What is it about St. James Place that makes everyone you speak to, residents and employees alike, so enthusiastic about it? For Life Enrichment Manager, Emily Bozeman, it’s pretty much everything. Emily’s enthusiasm for both her job and the community she serves is infectious. Talk to her and it will quickly become clear why St. James Place is as popular as it is.
“St. James Place is just a wonderful place to work,” says Emily. “We get phenomenal support from our leadership team. It's the kind of place where any staff member, regardless of whether it’s your first day on the job or you've been here for 30 years, they still smile and say hello in the hallways and interact with each other. I joke with the residents all the time. I’ll say, ‘Have I enriched your life today?’ They'll usually laugh and say, ‘yes.’ I say, ‘Great! I'm doing my job.’"
Emily, who has a bachelor’s degree in business, and whose past jobs include working for a non-profit theatre company as well as performing at Disney World, started working at St. James Place in August of 2019. “I started in assisted living,” she says. In February, our independent living Life Enrichment Manager left, and so the company came to me and said, ‘Emily, we know you work in assisted living, but we need you to take our independent living residents to Mardi Gras in New Orleans because we don't have a staff member to go with them.’ So, I took this group of residents to Mardi Gras in New Orleans and everyone had a great time.”
Emily credits her work at Disney World for helping prepare her for St. James Place. “The Disney Company teaches all their cast members (Disney speak for ‘employees’) amazing customer service. Performing allowed me to be unafraid, bold, silly and even a little charismatic in front of a crowd. If you can do it in front of tens of thousands of people in a parade down Main Street USA, then getting up in front of the almost 200 IL residents at St. James Place doesn’t seem nearly as daunting. It helps me bring fun into activities and interactions. The residents pretty much expect that I’ll wear some sort of costume to themed events, whether it be Halloween, turning into a pirate for National Talk Like A Pirate Day, a flapper when we rolled back into the ‘20s for NYE or being a leprechaun on St. Patrick’s Day.
Asked which characters she played at Disney World, Emily laughs. “Well, Disney magic technically prevents me from answering that. But I can tell you any characters I played were short! I spent a lot of time with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, among numerous others.”
Eventually, Emily was permanently transferred to Independent Living where she dove into her new position, using her Disney experience to bring more fun and creativity to her new position. “Our management team allowed me to pretty much bring in whatever I wanted, which was a lot of fun. It was definitely different. But this is the kind of job I thrive in.”
“If I had a desk job,” she explains, “I’d go crazy. I’m not the kind of person who can sit at a desk all day long. I love being around people. I love creativity and variety. This job encompasses all of that. I constantly get to be as creative as I want and I'm always looking for new ideas. I plan and organize our entire social calendar. Some things are the same every week. We're going to have Catholic Mass every Tuesday. We're going to have our Building a Better You group every Wednesday. But the rest of the week, or month, I get to play around and bring in new things. For example, last month was October, so we did an Oktoberfest. And we did something for Halloween. It's a fun mix of being as creative as I can and finding things I think people will really enjoy.”
Emily also credits the residents for their contributions. “I sit in as the staff member on the activities committee,” she says. “This year, we have two co-chairs, so I work with the two of them and the rest of the committee to come up with different events. We get a lot of input from residents about what they want or don't want. For example, on Monday, a group of residents came to me and said, ‘We want to go see the Beach Boys on Wednesday. Can you make that happen?’ And we did. At the last minute we were able to arrange for a bus with 10 of them to go see the Beach Boys. We even got them great orchestra seats. That’s the thing about having a Life Enrichment Manager. They get to say, ‘I want to go,’ then I arrange it. They get to enjoy themselves and come home without having dealt with the stress of buying tickets online or finding parking.”
Emily also takes pains to make sure the staff is recognized for their contributions, especially the dining staff. “I'm incredibly fortunate,” she says, “that our Dining Director is as all in with the themes we come up with as I am because I’ll say, ‘I need this,’ and he can make it happen. We're very cohesive. Other staff members will come to me and say, ‘What about this idea? Have you thought about doing this with the residents?’ I also try to incorporate the staff into some of our activities. For Mardi Gras, we have a whole closet full of Mardi Gras costumes. I pulled them out for the residents. Then I sent out a staff-wide email saying, ‘Look, I put up a photo background. Come take pictures in these Mardi Gras costumes.’
Emily’s remarks continue the theme shared by so many when asked about St. James Place — it’s about the people. “One thing I absolutely love about working here,” she says, “is the relationship between the staff and the residents. The residents find out when our birthdays are so they can wish us happy birthdays. They knew that I ran a 5K this weekend for a family member with cancer, and they all came in to check on me and see how it went. It's really incredible that as much as they become a part of my life, I equally become a part of their lives. That's one thing I really love about working at St. James Place.”
And what does Emily foresee for next year? “I see 2023 just getting bigger and better,” she says. “We tend to evolve and grow and just have more fun with each passing year.” With people like Emily on staff, we have no doubt she’s going to be proven correct.
If you’d like to see for yourself the multitude of activities that make St. James Place home for so many seniors seeking an active retirement, call (225) 314-5857, to arrange a personal tour.