Nicole Cunningham, life enrichment coordinator at Morning Pointe of Brentwood Assisted Living and Memory Care in Tennessee, loves to share joy with her residents, and she has an interesting background of her own to bring to the table with a professional ice-skating career and recent trip to the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Life Enrichment Coordinator Role
In 2020, A friend of Nicole’s was working at the front desk at Morning Pointe of Brentwood and told her the community was looking for a life enrichment coordinator as an assistant. “I wasn’t even looking for a job,” Nicole said. “It was just a good fit. Regie Ragland, the life enrichment director, and I work really well together.”
Nicole joined the Morning Pointe team in October 2020. She works part-time (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons), helping with other activities, assisting in the dining room and more. As a certified yoga and group fitness instructor, she especially enjoys leading exercise classes.
“I love everything I do – I just love the people and the stories our residents tell,” Nicole added. “It’s deeper than they are just residents – they are like my adopted grandparents. I just want to give them the best quality of life that we can.”
Professional Ice Skater
One of the things Nicole has been able to share with residents is stories about her seven years with Disney on Ice, skating in their shows. During one of the Men’s Roundtable discussions at the community, she joined Bill Fauver, 1976 and 1984 Winter Olympic skater, in talking about their skating years.
Nicole did competitive ice skating in high school, and when she was in her junior year of college in 1989, she wasn’t sure what direction she wanted to go with her life. She happened to see an ad in the newspaper for people to come skate with Mickey and Minnie Mouse on a Friday, just for fun. She turned up for some recreation and discovered that Disney on Ice was also holding auditions. They were impressed with her skating.
“The director told me, ‘We’re leaving Sunday. Can you come with us?’” Nicole remembered. She jumped at the opportunity. The company was owned by Ringling Brothers, so, “I told my family I was running away with the circus!”
As a cast member, it was Nicole’s job to learn the movements for all the different characters in the current show, whether that was “Mickey’s Diamond Jubilee,” “Beauty and the Beast,” or a show that featured a variety of Disney character vignettes. Her favorites were the shows that told a story.
In the business, performers were not allowed to tell people what part they were playing, as part of the Disney magic. In between shows, they would go to Disney World in Florida for the costume fittings, which were held underground.
“It was my ticket to travel,” Nicole said. And travel she did. She performed up and down the East and West Coasts of the United States, as well as overseas in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Egypt, and throughout Europe, Asia, and South America.
“Every city was so unique,” Nicole explained. “My friends and I would get up early and get into the culture, the local places. We rode horses around the pyramids, we hiked Mount Fuji and did all sorts of fun things.” Nicole enjoyed her seven years with Disney on Ice and is still friends with some of the people she met in the group.
2024 Olympics
Residents also thoroughly enjoyed Nicole sharing about her adventures at the recent Paris Olympics in a presentation she gave in August. Her husband, Brian, works for Bridgestone Tires, which was a major sponsor of the 2024 Olympics, and he was able to get tickets for himself and Nicole for several of the competitions.
“It was amazing that we got to go,” Nicole said. “They had everything very well organized. We had fabulous seats. It was the chance of a lifetime.”
She got to witness several swimming events, including the men’s and women’s relays, where the US won gold medals. Nicole got to watch the 100-meter dash, which American Noah Lyles won. She watched a basketball game between Serbia and Australia, as well as some of the diving events.
However, her favorite events were the beach volleyball games for the amount of energy and the pole vault. Swedish athlete Armand Duplantis won the world record. “The entire stadium was cheering him on,” Nicole recounted. “When he did it on the third try, the place exploded with cheers.”
Nicole especially loved sharing these memories with the Morning Pointe residents in tandem with August’s Morning Pointe in Motion virtual travel destination: Paris. “Morning Pointe in Motion gets the residents talking, especially If they’ve traveled to those places,” she said of the program. “It gets the memories going, and it’s a great program.”
More Morning Pointe Activities Reflections
Beyond Morning Pointe in Motion, Nicole sees the benefits that life enrichment programs bring to the residents. “We are always encouraging residents to get involved in activities – we make the effort to invite people,” she said. “I see such a difference between the residents who participate and the residents who choose not to. They’re more social. They meet friends, and they seem happier. It helps the day pass.” At the end of the day, she summed up, “Residents come to us to have fun.”
Thank you, Nicole, and all Morning Pointe Senior Living’s activity professionals for putting your experiences and heart into bringing our residents joy.
