YWCA Bethlehem’s Adult Day Services program hosted a free concert for its participants Oct. 19. The concert, funded by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts through a Pennsylvania Partners for the Arts (PPA) Project Stream Grant, enabled the program to invite the folk duo Simple Gifts, from State College.

“We like to bring in outside entertainment about every other month,” says interim director and activities director Yvonne Toth. “We’re always searching for grants and funding from other sources to help bring in special programs and entertainment.”

Many of the seniors enrolled in the Adult Day Services program live with cognitive disabilities that include dementia and Alzheimer’s. During the two-hour program, Simple Gifts’ musicians, Linda Littleton and Karen Hirshon, encouraged their senior audience to try their hand at playing instruments. Later, the duo used a variety of instruments including fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bowed psaltery, guitar, and hammer dulcimer to play a lively variety of Irish jigs and polkas, folk songs, and hymns.