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Southgate residents spell success with Boggle
Weekly sessions grow in popularity as residents rack up words – and brain benefits
6/4/2025
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Deron Hamel
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Southgate Village residents pose in front of a whiteboard of words they've formed playing Boggle.
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Word games have become a favourite pastime at Southgate Village, where residents of the Kingsville, Ont. seniors living community are embracing the challenge and enjoying the mental benefits of these engaging brain exercises, and Boggle is proving to be a new favourite.
Each Wednesday, Southgate Village sets aside time for residents to play word games, an activity that has become a long-standing tradition, says Valerie Judas, the Village's fun co-ordinator.
When Valerie first began leading the program, the go-to game was Hangman, a word game where players guess a word or phrase based on a given theme.
The activity was originally run by a volunteer, but when that volunteer stepped away, Valerie saw an opportunity to try something new. She tested out a variety of games she found online, but one in particular quickly became a favourite: Boggle.
The game challenges players to create words from jumbles of lettered dice. Players can combine letters in any direction or order to form words.
“Well, let me tell you, this game has taken off,” Valerie tells S&R Today. “We usually play for about an hour, and at first, it was a little confusing for some, and we had maybe 150 words. Now, they have the hang of it all, and boy have the words increased, along with the time spent.”
The group starts the game together on Wednesdays, and Valerie posts a new set of letters on Fridays for residents to enjoy over the weekend.
This has resulted in residents being exposed to many new words.
“Our whiteboard is getting a workout with words from our many cultures here: (there have been) French, Italian, Finnish, Dutch and English words that we've had to look up definitions for,” Valerie says.
Sessions that once lasted an hour now stretch to 90 minutes or more, as Valerie leaves the letters up for the rest of the day and into the next.
“Coming back from the weekend, I find the board filled with words every Monday,” she says, noting the current record, at the time of this writing, is 1,076 words.
Valerie says that beyond the fun, the games offer real cognitive benefits for participants.
“(We are) expanding our word power, one game at a time,” she says.
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