Our Island Home Nantucket

08/18/2025

It may have been a grey and windy morning, but that certainly did not stop the Wheelers or our residents from going out this morning. A great ride enjoyed by all. As always, Thank you Wheelers for your time, enthusiasm and kindness❤️

08/04/2025

08/04/2025

07/21/2025

An absolutely perfect day for a Wheelers’ ride. A full crew of pilots and OIH participants today. Great weather, great folks (riding & biking) and great destinations. What’s not to Love🦽🚲❤️

07/14/2025

We would like to thank Mitch Blake for coming to provide us with a musical performance with all original music written by Mithc. Mitch's music has a wonderful calming effect for many OIH residents. Thank you, Mitch!

07/14/2025

We are so happy to welcome Pat Beilman back to our volunteer team after a long winger. Pat comes in to provide residents with hand dancing exercises to fun and upbeat music. Pat created hand dancing to provide opportunity to keep fine motor skills sharp and decrease hand pain from ailing effects of arthritis and other ailments.

07/14/2025

We would like to thank the Wyman family for the beautiful donations of flowers.

07/14/2025

Several residents gather weekly to participate in much loved "Floral Arranging" Activity. These flowers are donated weekly from Flowers on Chestnut Street. Thank you, Michael and all responsible for the weekly donations.

07/14/2025

We would like to thank the Historical association for the calendar donations. We love the vintage photos of Nantucket.

07/11/2025

Kathy Grieder began her local community volunteerism at the Hospital Thrift Shop for a couple of summers when she returned to Nantucket in her retirement. She served on the Council on Aging from 2016 to 2018 before joining the board of the nonprofit Nantucket Center for Elder Affairs (Friends of Nantucket Seniors), where she formed and led its marketing committee from 2019 to 2022, initiating programs that significantly elevated attention to the island’s seniors.

She started the NCEA’s website to make available comprehensive information about senior activities; convinced the Select Board to declare 2020 the Year of the Nantucket Senior, which was ultimately canceled due to COVID-19; and began consistent publicity of senior events and activities in island media.

Kathy has worked hard to expand programs to get seniors outside and exercising on a regular basis. One of the ways she did that was coordinating senior walks.

She worked with Neil Foley at the Nantucket Conservation Foundation to split the cross island walk into six weeks.

In 2018, Kathy’s mom became a resident of Our Island Home and was a resident from 2018-2022. Kathy joined the Our Island Home Family Council and served as the secretary while her mother was a resident. In 2019 Kathy joined Friends of Our Island Home and secured grants for multi-generational events and entertainment for the town-owned nursing home’s residents. In 2021, she was elected president of that board and has been a leader in the effort to relocate, design and seek

voter approval and private funding for a new skilled nursing facility on the island.

Kathy is very proud of the work she put in during her time as president of Friends of Our Island Home, she said.

Kathy along with Alison Forsgren (Vice President of Friends) were involved in creating podcasts, held a Forum at the Dreamland Theater, and visited different organizations over the last 2 years, doing presentations about the new Our Island Home and how necessary it is.

Kathy remains hopeful that the residents of Nantucket will understand the importance of Our Island Home and is thankful the town is looking into alternative options after it failed to receive funding at May’s Annual Town Meeting and the election ballot.

Kathy Grieder who has been a long-standing member and President of the Friends of Our Island Home received this years Elder Service award. Congratulations Kathy! Thank you, Kathy for all the hard work you put into OIH and efforts towards residents receiving programs through fund-raising efforts by the FoOIH.