EpandMedia’s director Len Epand just wrapped an 11-minute promotional film for the innovative Kaplen Adult Reach Center (ARC), a part of the JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, New Jersey. ARC provides a day program for seniors afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease. The video was designed to demonstrate ARC’s value both to caregivers of those suffering Alzheimer’s and to prospective donors.
Following participant Izzy and his wife and caregiver Rose on a typical day, the video begins at their apartment. It then catches Izzy at ARC, lighting up at the various activities – exercising, singing along with a pianist, greeting children who attend the JCC, discussing current events with the staff and volunteers, and more. It also shows the services provided for caregivers like Rose, from computer learning classes to card games of bridge with other caregivers.
Intercut with the narrative — in a fast-moving multi-image style — are comments from Rose, and key ARC administrators, staff, chief donor Maggie Kaplen, and a noted Gerontologist. Their points illuminate ARC’s numerous benefits while revealing the staff’s sensitivity and dedication, attributes making ARC’s impact such a vast quality-of-life improvement for participants and caregivers.
“This project proved one of the most moving I’ve been involved in,” commented Epand. “The participants – they’re not called patients since it’s not a hospital – are beautiful despite their unfortunate mental state. It’s clear that a program like ARC takes them as they are and provides them, and their caregiver, a large dollop of something precious that they’d otherwise lost – a life.”
The ARC video was inspired and made possible by leading political consultant Mark Penn, partner of Penn Schoen and Berland, whose now deceased mother, Blanche, enjoyed ARC. The video is dedicated to her memory.