Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 10

193 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 10 top and there was a dollop of ketchup for the cherry. At one of our other facilities, a few of the staff members purchased stick horses and set up an obstacle course in one area of the community. They raced around it and filmed themselves doing it so that they could play it back for the residents.” Several communities opted to host drive-by parades to raise neighborhood spirits. “The City of Rockford, Illinois, along with the staff at a Gardant-managed assisted living community, organized a parade for a resident who’d played for the Rockford Peaches baseball team,” Banas shares. “There were just so many people that participated – over 130 vehicles. They had their lights on and it was kind of an overcast day. It reminded me of that scene from the Kevin Costner movie where everybody’s driving into the baseball field in Iowa. It was basically League of Their Own and Field of Dreams, all in one parade.” GARDANT MANAGEMENT SOLUT IONS Working in a senior living community comes with many big rewards, and Banas says there’s something profoundly powerful about interacting with a group of people who’ve shaped the world we live in. He notes, “Our staff report great satisfaction in addressing the challenges of those who are growing older. The residents are so appreciative, and there’s also the great stories that you hear.” He remembers entering the lobby of one of Gardant’s communities a number of years ago and finding an eight-foot-high wood carving of the Gettysburg Address. “The carving had been down at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois,” Banas recalls. “I’m standing there, admiring it, and one of the residents walks up to me. He was the one who’d made the carving. He’d taken up wood carving at 92 years of age. It was incredible. He’d spent three and a half months doing it, and he was at that point still doing wood carvings out of his studio apartment in the assisted living community.” With the older adult population growing rapidly, Banas believes there’s a real opportunity to change any neutral or negative perceptions of assisted living communities. “The fact that it can be more cost-effective for the older adult and their families and for the state and federal governments than trying to provide services individually where the older adult is currently living is obviously appealing,” Banas says. “That’s not to disparage home health care in any way, especially if someone only needs home health care for a limited period of time before resuming their independent lifestyle. But, when you consider that research shows socialization is a key factor in healthy aging, and you see that our staff is on duty 24/7 and can provide a lot more benefits at a much lower cost than what you get with home health care, assisted living starts to sound like the better option.” Nurturing food through MENU PROGRAMS | DIETITIAN CONSULTING | EDUCATION