Bright Side Brevard is a community newsletter created, curated, and contributed to by residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and veterans’ homes across Brevard County. Their stories. Their recipes. Their jokes. Their wisdom.
Written by seniors. Loved by everyone.Residents across Brevard County take on real roles — joke columnist, recipe contributor, local historian, advice giver — and their words go into a real publication that gets printed, read, and shared. Nobody’s writing busywork. They’re writing for an audience.
Weekly editions online, with a printed version delivered to participating facilities once or twice a month. Residents hold it in their hands and see their name in print.
Residents contribute stories, recipes, jokes, opinions, local history, housekeeping tips, and advice. Some write themselves. Others dictate. Every voice counts.
Content comes from residents at nursing homes, assisted living communities, and veterans’ facilities throughout Brevard County. We have a dedicated veterans section honoring the service members in our community. Readers at one facility discover voices from another.
We don’t assign homework. We discover what people are already good at and give them a title for it. The roles below are just the beginning — if a resident has a passion, a talent, or a perspective that doesn’t fit neatly into one of these boxes, we’ll create a new role just for them.
One joke per issue. The cornier the better.
A dish and the story behind it.
Memories of Brevard places that have changed or disappeared.
Life wisdom on love, work, family, or getting older.
Opinions on a movie, show, book, or meal. No wrong answers.
Housekeeping hacks, life shortcuts, and the tricks they swear by.
A song that means something to them and why.
A true story from their life, short or long, funny or moving.
Stories, reflections, and advice from those who served.
Have a passion we haven’t listed? We’ll make a role for it.
Roles can be as simple or as involved as someone wants. A resident might contribute one joke a month or write something for every issue. There’s no minimum, no deadline pressure, and no expectation beyond showing up and sharing what they know. New roles get invented all the time based on what residents care about — gardening tips, weather predictions, pet stories, crossword clues, compliment columns, you name it.
Every edition of Bright Side Brevard will be archived here so families, staff, and the community can read and share what our residents have created. Weekly online editions and monthly print editions.
Our first issue is in the works. Once we’ve run our first sessions and our resident contributors have had their say, the archive will go live right here.
Claire from Space Coast Stories visits participating facilities for life story sessions, games, and activities.
During and between sessions, residents share stories, recipes, jokes, tips, opinions, and memories for the newsletter.
Contributions are compiled, edited, and designed into a real newsletter — online weekly, printed monthly — with every contributor credited by name.
Printed copies go to residents, staff, and families. Online editions are archived here for anyone to enjoy.
Bright Side Brevard is part of the Space Coast Stories life enrichment program. If your nursing home, assisted living community, or veterans’ facility is interested in having residents contribute to the newsletter — or if you’d like to bring our full programming to your community — we’d love to talk.
Every joke, every recipe, every memory of a Brevard County that’s changing — it all deserves to be written down and shared.
Get In Touch