Nursing home residents can hug, thanks to Boy Scout
A Madison Boy Scout built six homemade hugging booths for residents of a Yazoo City nursing home so loved ones can still show affection during the coronavirus pandemic.
Cooper Williams’ hugging booths have made such a positive impact on residents, Julie Hoffman, executive director of the home, said.
“We’re so grateful that Cooper thought of us and did this for us,” Hoffman said. “Our residents cried tears of joy when they got to hug their family members. It was all so wonderful.”
Williams doesn’t have any connection to the Yazoo City home it besides it being a nursing home that he chose for his project, and his grandmother, a Yazoo City resident, knowing Hoffman.
The 17-year-old built the hugging booths for people to safely hug their elderly family members with a much lower risk of spreading the virus.
He designed three different heights of the sleeves for standing, sitting or in a wheelchair.
Williams built the booths as part of his Eagle Scout project and wanted to help families who are struggling during the pandemic by giving them the chance to make physical contact with their loved ones.
Williams is currently a Life Scout, the second-highest rank, with Troop 164 at Parkway Hills United Methodist Church. He is very close to receiving his Eagle rank with his review set for today (Thursday).
Like all nursing homes around the country, the residents haven’t been able to physically touch their loved ones since the start of the pandemic back in March. Only window and patio visits have been allowed.
“It was such a nice thing to see people use my booths,” Williams said. “Everyone that’s used them absolutely loved them.”
Williams took the booths up to the Martha Coker Green House Homes right before Thanksgiving and went back last weekend for a television interview and got to see families using the booths.
Williams said he got most of his inspiration from his mother, who used to work in a nursing home.
“This was just something nice I wanted to do for the people at Martha Coker,” he said.
He built the hugging booths out of PVC pipe and sheets of Visquee making armholes for hugging all over a period of about six weeks.
The first booth was almost seven feet tall. The original prototype was supposed to have a plexiglass window instead of plastic, but it was decided the glass would get in the way.
“I absolutely love building things, and building the booths were the best part besides seeing the families using them,” he said. “I had a bunch of my family and friends help me with them. It was really fun working with them and putting everything together.”
Hoffman said since a lot of the residents are very big huggers, it was very emotional for them to finally touch their family members for the first time since March.
Before the hugging booths, residents of Martha Coker were only able to have window visits with their family members at the start of the pandemic.
The homes have since transitioned to patio visits while remaining six feet apart and then implemented a closed-in heated room where people could sit down and talk while staying six feet apart. Now, the hugging booths are there for people to hug and make actual contact with one another.
Hoffman urged that If there’s families who have a loved one at Martha Coker and want to use the hugging booths, they can book an appointment by calling the main office at 662-746-4621.