Community Edition
The World Desk · Passport Week
The World Comes to You
Why we turn one country into a week of conversation, culture and connection, for every resident.
Many communities have hosted an “international night”: flags on the tables, a playlist of the country’s music, a special dinner. Residents enjoy it. But a country is more than its flag and its food, and a single evening only scratches the surface.
Passport Week takes residents somewhere for a whole week. It is built around a few beliefs.
Belief one
A week is a journey; a night is a postcard
Each Passport Week gives a community up to sixteen activities across seven days: discussion, music, dance, film, art, games, a themed dinner and a guest speaker or performer. Residents collect a stamp on their passport card at each one, and a drawing at the end of the week rewards everyone who traveled along. A community can run the full week, or start with a simple three-activity minimum.
Belief two
Every trip begins with a conversation
At the center of each week is Coffee and a Country: a 45-minute discussion that opens with a short, warm story set in that country (a grandmother’s evening walk in an Italian hill town, four old friends at a tea stall in Kolkata) and then turns to residents’ own lives and travels. Every resident is a traveler with stories to tell. Passport Week gives them a reason to tell them.
Every resident is a traveler with stories to tell. Passport Week gives them a reason to tell them.
Belief three
Meet a country through its own great writers
Each week includes Coffee and a Story, built on a classic short story by one of the country’s own authors, such as Pirandello for Italy, José Martí for Cuba or Rabindranath Tagore for India. Translations stay true to the author’s words. Residents read the story in large print, hear a passage read aloud, and discuss it together, the way a good book club does.
Belief four
Every level of care can make the trip
Every activity is marked for Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care, with simple adaptations: seated dances, pre-drawn art templates, soft menus, calm sensory activities like a tea or coffee tasting. A Passport Buddies program pairs Independent Living volunteers with neighbors in Assisted Living and Memory Care, so the whole community travels together.
Belief five
The people around you have been there
Many residents, and many of the staff who care for them, have family roots in the countries we visit. Passport Week invites them, always voluntarily, to share a favorite dish, a song, a holiday or a memory. A staff member teaching residents to say “thank you” in her grandmother’s language can be the most memorable moment of the week.
Belief six
Culture, not controversy
Our kits focus on what brings people together: food, music, family, faith traditions, art and everyday life. Every host guide shows how to steer gently away from politics and stereotypes, and how to welcome residents whose memories of a country may be complicated. Facts are checked against reliable sources, and every source is listed.
Belief seven
Lifestyle teams get the whole trip, packed and ready
Each kit includes a Week at a Glance calendar, activity cards with costs and staffing, menus with diet adaptations for the dining team, trivia, a phrase sheet, film and documentary picks in food, travel and history, two art projects with step-by-step guides, passport cards, Table Talk cards for the dining room, a guide to finding local guests, a countdown checklist, and posters and graphics for lobby TVs and resident apps.
- China
- Brazil
- Cuba
- France
- Italy
- India
- and more on the way
At a glance
A typical international night, and Passport Week
| Compare | A typical international night | A World Desk Passport Week |
|---|---|---|
| Length | One evening | Up to seven days and sixteen activities |
| At the heart | A themed dinner | A discussion, a classic story, and residents’ own travels and memories |
| Who takes part | Mostly Independent Living | Every level of care, with Passport Buddies |
| Staff and residents | Guests at the event | Invited to share their own heritage |
| Content | Gathered quickly from the internet | Written for seniors, fact-checked, with sources |
| Planning | Built from scratch | A complete kit, ready to run |
| Afterward | Photos on a phone | Attendance tracker, resident survey, results for the Executive Director, family newsletter story |
Better together
Passport Week and Theme Weeks
Passport Week takes residents around the world. Our Theme Weeks, such as the Roaring Twenties Speakeasy, the Big Band and USO Dinner Dance and the Golden Age of Broadway, take them back through the decades they and their parents lived. Each is a week of build-up ending in a night to remember, with art, music, conversation and seated dancing for every level of care.
Together with The World Desk’s daily news briefing and our weekly Coffee and a Story, Coffee and a Country and Coffee and a Topic discussions, they give a Lifestyle team a full calendar of ready-to-run, high-quality programming, for far less than the staff time it would take to build it.
Pack your bags
Passport Week is included in every community subscription. Ask us for a sample kit, or a walk-through with your Lifestyle team.
Theme Weeks take residents back through the decades they and their parents lived. Read “More Than a Party.”