Visit the Lillian Booth Actors Home

For more than 130 years, The Actors Fund, with funding from the SAG Motion Picture Players Welfare Fund and the AFTRA Foundation, has provided a wide variety of social, health, employment and housing services, including assisted living, nursing home care and even short-stay rehabilitation for performing arts and entertainment professionals and their eligible family members at The Fund’s Lillian Booth Actors Home. Nestled on a quiet residential street in Englewood, N.J., the Lillian Booth Home sits on six beautifully landscaped acres.
 
At the Home, residents enjoy monthly visits from entertainers and celebrities like Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara and Tommy Tune, who performed his act for residents at the end of October. The Home also provides residents with many fulfilling activities by offering music, art and pet therapies, daily exercise classes, local community outings to shows, restaurants, cultural events and more. Recently, residents enjoyed working with the award-winning creators of the documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars (directed by Hank Rogerson and produced by Jilann Spitzmiller) on their new film about our residents mounting a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 2009, the Home completed a $12 million renovation and expansion, adding more beds, a new rehabilitation wing and updated public spaces like the MusiCares Salon and the Mary Fisher Secret Garden.
 
Residents enjoy visits from families and friends, but there are many residents that can benefit from the interaction that only a fellow performer can provide. Consider volunteering to spend an afternoon with a resident. Listen to their wonderful tales and share your own. Conveniently accessible by public transportation, this volunteer opportunity will mean so much to the residents, and will enrich your life immeasurably.
 
For more information on volunteering at the Home, please contact the Human Resources Manager by phone at (201) 871-8882 ext. 506. For information about The Actors Fund and all of its free programs and services for SAG-AFTRA members, visit actorsfund.org.

This article was originally featured in the December 2012 local e-newsletter.