Seniors have made the world what it is today; a charity paying it forward

Charity Spotlight: This post was provided by Iris Sullivan, Foundation Operations Administrator at Mount St. Joseph Foundation, as part of our ongoing charity spotlight series.

For many residents living in Mount St. Joseph Nursing Home, a health issue has suddenly or gradually caused them to become dependent upon others for basic and daily care after years of living independently. Oftentimes this scenario divides household income, creating a financial burden, and produces unnecessary stress.

Mount St. Joseph Nursing Home, located in Miramichi, New Brunswick, is home to 133 residents, including 25 residents with Alzheimer’s and/or Dementia, and 23 with special needs. Although Mount St. Joseph Nursing Home is able to fulfill residents’ basic needs using funding provided by the province of New Brunswick and resident’s monthly living costs, the Mount St. Joseph Foundation strives to enhance our residents’ overall quality of life by providing them with the best possible care. We work effortlessly to provide residents with new opportunities, a safe, healthy, and comfortable living environment, and active recreational, and relaxing therapeutic programs.

Before the Mount St. Joseph Foundation existed, Mount Saint Joseph Nursing Home had just the bare necessities. Since 2011, the foundation has raised enough funds to purchase 59 news beds, 6 glider chairs, 4 lifts, 4 computers, 3 wheelchair-accessible computer desks, 2 E-readers, 2 sleep chairs, 4 iPads, and 12 MP3 players. The foundation has also established a music therapy program called ROOM 217, and is also proud to have provided the Mount Saint Joseph Nursing Home with a blanket warmer and ice machine — two major purchases the nursing home would most likely not have otherwise been able to provide residents without the assistance provided by our charity. As for our 2014 objectives, we are excited to launch one exciting venture, and work towards fulfilling another.

The Snoezelen Room

Following multiple fundraising campaigns, our foundation is proud to have raised enough funds to provide residents at the Mount Saint Joseph Nursing Home with a Snoezelen room. A Snoezelen room is a multi-sensory, non-threatening environment which uses all five senses to either calm or stimulate our residents’ cognitive, perceptual, behavioural health, and improve their overall well-being and stress reduction. Currently our recreation programs include music therapy, bingo, bowling, and pet therapy — all of which our residents greatly enjoy. Now using our Snoezelen room, we will soon be able to enhance our existing programs and stimulate all five senses, providing further calming and therapeutic recreational programming for our residents. This new initiative is very exciting for our charity, and will soon be enjoyed by our residents.

Keeping Residents in Motion

Aside from our Snoezelen room, we are also working to keep our residents happy, healthy, and active by raising funds for our Residents in Motion fundraising campaign. Our campaign hopes to raise enough funds to provide residents with a multitude of new, accessible equipment to help our residents live healthy and active lives. Some of the products we hope to fund include:

• Individual accessible tables, allowing residents to eat at the table, rather than their bedside;
• Accessible kitchen countertops for our residents in wheelchairs;
• Accessible workstations designed to create arts and crafts at the convenience of our residents in wheelchairs; and
• A Go Anywhere Wheelchair Bicycle Tandem, giving outdoor access to many of our residents.

Our Residents in Motion campaign hopes to fully fund the steep project estimate of $250,000 – only made possible donors generous contributions.

The Mount St. Joseph Foundation works on behalf of some of the most vulnerable people in our community. Most residents of the Mount St. Joseph Nursing Home have given up their former lifestyle due to a physical or mental challenge, and oftentimes have had no choice but to move into a long term care home in order to be provided the best care. We love the work we do because we restore our residents of their priceless independence. Although our greatest challenge is accessing funds, we continuously work hard to ensure Mount Saint Joseph Nursing Home residents live the best life possible.