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Chapter News Large Mills Music Mission
In the early days of the fraternity, Father Ossian Mills would take several friends to visit hospitals and care homes in Boston in order to give the gift of music and flowers to those there so that they might be comforted during their hardships. In recent years, and in order to commemorate that practice (the "Flower Mission," as it was called), the national fraternity revived the tradition in a mission called the Mills Music Mission.
After this moving weekend, the chapter anxiously desired to perform more Mills Music Missions as soon as it was able. |
The
chapter visited eight senior-care facilities during the weekend
of March 29-30, giving its gift of song to over two hundred residents
and patients. At some facilities, the chapter sang as a group
to the assembled residents; at others, the chapter went room-to-room
singing in order to bring joy to the patients.
The
chapter spent the semester rehearsing several songs that seniors
would remember from earlier in their lives, including old barbershop
songs, love songs, and patriotic tunes. In early March, the
chapter scheduled singings in eight different places, including
nursing homes and hospitals. The chapter sang to facilities
in Brandon, Raymond, Jackson, and Vicksburg. Beginning on
Saturday morning at the Briar Hill Rest Home and ending with a room-to-room
singing at a Vicksburg nursing home, the chapter got tremendous
pleasure from helping the residents to forget their current situations
for a few minutes and to return to happier times in their lives.
Seeing so many residents close their eyes, smile, and joyfully cry
was one of the most profound experiences that the chapter had ever
had together.
After
singing at all eight of these places, the chapter went back to Brother
James Koestler's home in Vicksburg to reflect on the mission.
It helped to remind the chapter of the obvious: that the mission
was an extremely moving experience for everyone involved.