Ground breaking ceremony held at Twin Town Villa

On Wednesday, July 25th, Twin Town Villa held their ground breaking ceremony for their new expansion project.

 

Several community members attended the event.  It was fun to see everyone get excited about what the project is going to bring to Breckenridge.

 

We had the official ground breaking ceremony.

 

We even had some residents and staff come outside to participate.  From the look on their faces, they seemed to be extremely excited for what’s to come.The equipment is all lined up and ready to start moving ground.

As we mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, this is a $3.5 million dollar expansion to Twin Town Villa and will bring additional assisted living apartments and a memory care community.

We expect to hire an additional 12-15 new positions to work in the community.  Over time, we expect that additional positions could be added based on level of care needed.

Welcome Home operates 7 senior living communities in Minnesota and Wisconsin. We’ve been providing a warm, homelike atmosphere for resident to call home since 1994 in many different states. Our goal is to focus on the individual residents needs. Over the past several years, we’ve seen and heard from residents and family members to add more service options. By adding these programs to our community, it gives older adults more options for their care and life experiences.

As we age, we want to live in a place that is fun, eat great food, and have our needs cared for.  We believe that adding this community, with the additional common areas such as the movie theater, additional apartments and care programs, gives our residents and their families what they’ve been looking for.

For more information about Twin Town Villa or Welcome Home Management, please visit our website at www.wtohdevelopment.com.  You can get an “inside look” in to the daily lives of our residents by visiting all of our communities Facebook pages.  A link to those can be found on our website as well.

 

North Star Leadership Award Nominee #3

This week, we are honoring team members who were nominated for our North Star Leadership Award.  We are also submitting those who were nominated to Aging Services Stars Among Us campaign.

As we continue to honor those individuals who were nominated for Welcome Home Management’s North Star Leadership Award, and who were submitted to the Stars Among Us campaign at Aging Services, we come to our third nominee.

Our third nomination and Star Among Us is Sharon.  She is a care provider at Twin Town Villa Senior Living in Breckenridge, Minnesota.  This is her first nomination for the North Star Leadership Award.

Sharon was nominated by a resident of Twin Town Villa.  She writes:

“I nominate Sharon H. for her duties and presence.  She goes way beyond getting her work done and in my eyes, you never see her idle.

She is always friendly and very helpful – always with a smile!”

Inspire - What inspires you to serve older adults? Is there a mentor or fellow caregiver who motivates or helps you? What keeps you going on tough days?

“Their sincere appreciation for whatever you do for them.  The compliments you receive for doing your best when caring for them and assisting however you can at the time.”

The people who help motivate me is the compassionate nurse to learn from in how to care for our residents.”

“What keeps me going is the smiles and greetings as you meeting in the hall and being asked “How are you today?” from the residents.  The fact that they really care about you when you answer is the best.”

Serve - What does a career serving older adults mean to you? What is the most meaningful or rewarding part of your job? The most challenging?

“It means so much to be around people that I can learn as much from, as they have a lifetime of living experience.”
“The most rewarding part is knowing what I do for them on a daily basis makes a difference in their life, even if it just makes them smile or laugh.”

Advocate - What do you advocate for? What do you want public policy makers to know about the work you do?

“I advocate for older adults to be treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their health or disability.”

“I want our public policy makers to know that the work I do as a care provider makes their quality of life much better, especially for the resident’s who call our community home!”

Sharon has been doing an outstanding job since she came on board four years ago.  All of us at Twin Town Villa and at Welcome Home congratulate her on her nomination.

For the past three years, Welcome Home has honored an individual that shows leadership  abilities in their community or in the organization with the North Star Leadership Award.  The North Star Leadership Award winner will be announced at Welcome Home’s Annual Winter Conference on February 23rd.  Watch for more details on our live presentation as our conference date approaches.

Roman Bloemke, Director of Operations

North Star Leadership Award nominee #2

As we mentioned earlier this week, we are honoring team members who were nominated for our North Star Leadership Award.  We are also submitting those who were nominated to Aging Services Stars Among Us campaign.

For the past three years, Welcome Home has honored an individual that shows leadership  abilities in their community or in the organization with the North Star Leadership Award.  With Aging Services of Minnesota’s program, we thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase not only our North Star Leadership award winner, but to all of those team members who were nominated throughout our company.

As we continue to honor those individuals who were nominated for Welcome Home Management’s North Star Leadership Award, and who were submitted to the Stars Among Us campaign at Aging Services, we come to our second nominee

Our second nomination and Star Among Us is Judi.  Judi is a shift leader at Twin Town Villa Senior Living in Breckenridge, Minnesota.  This is her second nomination for the North Star Leadership Award.

This year, Judi was nominated by residents, families, and the people she works with on a daily basis.  Last year, one of  Twin Town Villa’s advisory board members wrote,

“I see and hear firsthand about the excellent work that Judy does for the residents. She genuinely cares about the quality of life for the residents here at the Villa.  Judy has a great sense of humor which brightens  my father’s long days.  She is very understanding of his limitations due to his cancer and the medications side effects that he experiences.  She always greets him with a warm and cheerful smile and kind words.  It’s employees like her that make family members feel secure that their loved ones are being properly cared for.”

Inspire - What inspires you to serve older adults? Is there a mentor or fellow caregiver who motivates or helps you? What keeps you going on tough days?

“Knowing that I am helping individuals that are deserving of being taken care of is what inspires me.  It makes me feel good at the end of the day knowing that I helped them.”

My Director, Lisa Lehmann, and my RN, Tanya Ramacher are my mentors.  They are both very proactive when it comes to the cares and services that our residents need each and every day.”

“The resident’s are what keeps me going on the tough days.  Knowing that they appreciate everything that we do for them on a daily basis – it just keeps me going.”

Serve - What does a career serving older adults mean to you? What is the most meaningful or rewarding part of your job? The most challenging?

“Knowing that I am able to give back to the older adults after everything that they have done for us when we were the ones that needed to be taken care of.”

The most meaningful part of my job is getting to see each of the residents every day and seeing their smiles on Monday mornings after the weekend.”

Advocate - What do you advocate for? What do you want public policy makers to know about the work you do?

“I want our public policy makers to understand that giving individuals the opportunities to continue to live on their own, without having to in to the nursing home unless it is absolutely necessary, is extremely important to one’s self-esteem.”

Judi does an outstanding job for Twin Town Villa and Welcome Home Health Care.  She always has a big smile on her face every time I see her.  Congratulations Judi!

The North Star Leadership Award winner will be announced at Welcome Home’s Annual Winter Conference on February 23rd.  Watch for more details on our live presentation as our conference date approaches

Roman Bloemke, Director of Operations

Tons of stuff going on!

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who came out to see me speak with a good friend of mine at the Assisted Living Federation of America conference and expo last week in Orlando.  I was incredibly nervous, but I calmed once I saw a few familiar faces out there.  A quick thanks to my friend Traci for inviting me along to speak at such an awesome event!

Also, thank you to everyone who tuned in for our most recent Welcome Home LIVE web-broadcast!  It was great to see so many people engaged in great discussion.

I just wanted to take a quick minute and update all

Fighting Ageism in America

ALFA Short Film Competition winner - "Mind the Gap"

We recently returned from the Assisted Living Federation of America conference and there was a common theme we would like to share.

In today’s society, there seems to be a lot of “ageism” out there.  Ageism is defined as discrimination against people on the grounds of age; specifically, discrimination against the elderly.  This year, ALFA held a film competition that could help fight ageism in America.  If you click here, you can watch the short film that won the competition.

Then just yesterday, I came across this awesome story on MSNBC.com of a gentleman, who dreamed at a younger age, of crossing the Atlantic ocean in a raft.  At 85 years old, he set out with three of his friends to build the raft and set sail on the 2,800 mile journey.

Aging Parents: 5 warning signs of health problems

Recently, I had a chance meeting with one of our families outside of the work environment and we got to talking about a variety of things.  One of the points of conversation that was most interesting is the process that families go through when looking for a senior living community for their parent(s).  More times than people realize, decisions to make a move in to an assisted living community are based out of necessity.  We all talk a lot about services and amentities or features of our properties that seperate us from everyone else, but that isn’t what’s really important, and something they probably won’t remember when they get home to make their decision.

As providers, we have to remember that when someone reaches out to our communities, that we take in to consideration all of the emotions that this family member is going through.  Many times, as family members, we go out to visit our parents over the weekend and realize that something isn’t quite right and begin our search/fact finding mission.  This is very difficult time for families.  Imagine for a moment that you are out for a normal visit to your parents and realize that my parents are getting older.  Sometimes it can feel as though it happened overnight.  In those instances, families that are coming to visit us are in an emotional state.  It’s incredibly important to realize the stress they are going through.  They have called your community, or walked in the door to have us help them solutions and answers.

Video Games May Improve Seniors Health

The Incredi-bowls from Twin Town Villa

A new study on motion gaming, video games that involve frequent movement such as playing games on Wii and Kinect gaming systems, finds that elderly individuals can benefit physically and emotionally from these fun activities. Video games that allow seniors to participate in previously enjoyed activities such as tennis, bowling, and golf are particularly helpful in improving health.

According to a study by the Gerontological Society, virtually engaging in previously enjoyed activities increases life satisfaction, decreases reported loneliness, improves mood, and increases physical activity. Seniors also reported feeling “more apart of things” and more connected to the younger generation.