There’s a 90-something-year-old man at Trinity Oaks Health and Rehab in Salisbury, N.C., who usually has one question on his mind.

“When are we going to the beach?” the man asks, Trinity Administrator Bill Johnson says.

In most places, the question would be evidence of the ravages of dementia. In Trinity, there’s actually an answer: really soon.

Twice per year, residents, family, and Trinity staffers pack up wheelchairs, coolers, and fishin’ rods and head to the shore.

“It was really just a way for us to get our folks to be able to live normal lives, even though they live in a skilled facility,” Johnson says. “Folks in North Carolina are just used to going to the beach every spring and fall and going fishing.”

Trinity is one of the buildings run by Lutheran Services Carolinas, which has spent the better part of a decade rededicating itself to person-centered care. But, unlike so many activities in nursing homes, Johnson’s semi-annual trips aren’t just the flickering, Platonic shadows of the real thing: Residents sleep in bunks in cabins, enjoy what Carolinians call “low country boils,” take ferry rides, head out to fancy restaurants in Wilmington, and generally have a ball.

“Most people living in a nursing facility don’t get to take a vacation,” Johnson says of his residents. “And they do.”

There are other benefits, Johnson says. That nonagenarian mentioned earlier, having reached the beach, usually has a follow-up request, Johnson says.

“‘Okay,’” the man says, “‘I need a beer. A cold beer.’”

“They like Corona,” Johnson says. “And they like Sam Adams.”

The idea came to Johnson a few years ago when he was on a retreat.

“I just happened to go by there, and I kind of got out and started looking around and I thought, ‘Well, we could do this,’” Johnson says. “I got my staff to start researching and looking into what we could do. Everybody bought in and said, ‘Yeah, let’s try this and see how it goes.’”

The local fire departments offer up beach-friendly wheelchairs; families chip in with money—and cookies, brownies, and other delectables. (“We eat very well,” Johnson says.)

Johnson knew he was taking a huge risk, driving frail seniors four-plus hours for a weekend on the beach. “I was scared to death,” he says. “It’s a big undertaking. I still worry from the time we go until the time we get back.”

The trips, of course, are huge for the seniors. But they’ve also helped staff camaraderie—and made a world of difference for families, Johnson says.

“When you’re working side-by-side with family members and the families see how hard the staff are working to make this work … when your maintenance man is taking people to the bathroom and is helping dress people, that really just builds a team spirit,” he says.

“I think families realize that we’re going above and beyond what’s expected,” he adds. “Anytime I need anything extra, I just pick up the phone, and they say, ‘Yeah, whatever you need.’”

That doesn’t mean there aren’t still major problems with the trip, Johnson says.

“We’ve not had a lot of luck with fishing,” he says.

The past four years have yielded a paltry whiting for a resident, Johnson says.

“It was probably about a four- or five-inch fish, but of course we were telling him that by the time he got back to the facility, it would be a foot long,” Johnson says.