Santa Barbara Senior Community wins International Recognition Maravilla Wins ICCA Beacon Award

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Maravilla Senior Living Community of Santa Barbara, California announced today that it had been recognized by the International Council of Aging (ICCA) as placing among the top ten “Best in Wellness” senior living communities in the Northern Hemisphere.

The ICAA Beacon Award, a joint initiative between the International Council of Aging (ICCA), and NuStep LLC recognizes those communities that “foster a wellness centered community benefiting all residents and staff.” Each year the top 25 communities are named. This year Maravilla ranked tenth.

Jill Hyers, director of activities at Maravilla Senior Living Community explained that recipients of the Beacon Award must demonstrate compliance with several strict specified standards. “We are so proud to have been recognized for this prestigious honor. It is due to our staff and the residents who demonstrate an eagerness for physical and mental engagement. The programs at Maravilla focus on body, mind, and soul,” Hyers said.

“The activities at Maravilla are widely inclusive, striving to accommodate many levels of fitness,” said Melissa Milsap, Fitness Director at Maravilla. “They include boxing, rock wall climbing, high intensity interval training, drumming on exercise balls, water aerobics as well as conductercising to classical music,” Milsap added. 

Hyers explained that activities to engage the brain include One Day University, trivia, museum trips, and a resident quiz show. 

Suggestions from residents are encouraged. This past year many of our residents danced in a flash mob in downtown Santa Barbara during the Farmers’ Market. “Bystanders were quite entertained to see men and women in their 70s, 80s, and late 90s dancing to disco,” Hyers said. She added that a bystander recorded the event and put it on the Internet where it went viral. 

Milsap added, “the challenge residents complain most about is not finding something to do but deciding which activity to do.”