Bob Atkinson, resident of the senior living community Chatfield, is a patient man. He waited one year, and numerous cancellations to finally achieve his desired experience of a lifetime.
Atkinson won this opportunity through Brookdale Senior Living’s Experiences of a Lifetime program back in October. Chatfield is a Brookdale Senior Living independent living community in West Hartford. In October 2008, Atkinson was scheduled to attend the ultimate ballooning destination and event, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta in New Mexico.
Unfortunately, Atkinson was unable to travel and couldn’t make the trip to New Mexico.
This year, once the weather became nice, re-scheduling the balloon ride became a priority. Atkinson was scheduled to attend the local festival in August 2009, but it was cancelled due to the weather.
The balloon ride was re-scheduled twice more, but weather conditions forced cancellations again. Finally, on Sunday, Sept. 27, Atkinson had his dream fulfilled and had the ride of a lifetime.
"It was just wonderful," Atkinson said with a smile on his face.
They filled out a survey form explaining an experience they would like to have fulfilled and how that related to one or more dimensions of the company’s Optimum Life® concept, which is geared toward cultivating whole-person wellness through fulfillment in six key dimensions: physical, emotional, purposeful, social, spiritual, and intellectual.
The company collected their dreams and will provide a helping hand in making some of these goals come true.
In his winning essay, Atkinson tells how he would attend the Annual Balloon Meet in Bristol, Conn. in his younger days. On several different occasions, he tried to arrange for a flight in a hot air balloon. Sometimes, it was cost-prohibitive, other times, the ride would be full. He was never able to fulfill his dream of riding in a hot air balloon until now.
In his essay, Atkinson linked the fulfillment of this experience to the intellectual, social, physical, emotional and spiritual dimension of Optimum Life®.
Back to Press Room