Upholding our annual Hamdard event tradition, nearly 25 members of Thaakat Foundation helped organize an afternoon full of creativity, laughter, conversations, and good food. Thaakat’s board and students from Thaakat chapters at Benedictine University, Loyola University Chicago, UIC, NIU, and Northwestern came together for a holiday event to help spread some cheer to the seniors at Hamdard Center in Chicago. Doing fun arts and crafts activities, Thaakat helped the seniors make snowflakes and decorated cut outs of traced hands. The young members engaged in conversation with the seniors, learning about their lives as they recalled their favorite memories from childhood. To keep the holidays in spirit, Thaakat members also gathered around to do some good old caroling and sang famous holiday songs as the seniors and Hamdard staff happily joined in. The last time we all sang these songs was probably at our holiday concerts in elementary school! But we pulled off Fa la la and Rudolph, among others, quite nicely. There were even a few seniors who gave solo performances singing some of their own favorite songs! After serving lunch, the laughter and singing continued as the seniors kicked back and enjoyed the company. It was a great event that helped us all to remember the elderly in our communities and cherish the happiness that spreads from sharing simple moments with them, be it a simple hug or hello.
The Hamdard Center was established by co-founders, the late Dr. Farzana Hamid and Dr. Mohammad Hamid, in 1992 as a proactive response to address the critical mental health needs of the South Asian, Middle Eastern, Bosnian and other minority communities in the greater Chicago area. Hamdard’s mission is to promote physical and emotional health and well-being of individuals and families by offering hope, help and healing.
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