SCARBOROUGH, Maine — A nursing home in Scarborough is highlighting its residents through a new exhibit called "These Hands."
Scarborough Terrace staff has been sitting down with residents, one-on-one, and asking them about the proudest moments of their lives. They're taking pictures of the residents' hands and framing the photos to display around the facility.
Staff told NEWS CENTER Maine that there is a lot you can learn from these people who have lived full lives.
"I've learned that you can do a lot and to never give up, and one resident just told me this morning, like, 'You're young. Don't be afraid to pick up a new hobby or anything,'" Rebecca Corbett, an intern at Scarborough Terrace who has been working on this project, said.
One of the residents participating in this project is 94-year-old Gerry Serreze. When she sat down with Corbett, she told a story about selling raspberry jam during the Great Depression.
Her father was a piano teacher in the 1920s, and he was very busy until the Great Depression hit and people couldn't afford lessons.
"This man came to him and he said that he was known as the raspberry king, that he grew raspberries, and if my father would take him on for the winter he would pay him when the raspberries got ripe," Serreze said. "All that winter he came. And when the raspberries got ripe, we expected money, but he drove up with a truckload of raspberries. That's how he paid his bill."
She said her mother decided to make raspberry jam and sent her and her brother off to sell it, 10 cents for a small jar and 20 cents for a large jar.
"We sold the raspberry jam to keep us going through the Depression years," she said.
When asked why the staff at Scarborough Terrace chose to feature residents' hands, Corbett explained the answer was clear.
"We use our hands a lot, so it's kind of the way they manipulated their hands throughout their life, and it's an easy way to tell their story," Corbett said.