Interview with Gilmore Gardens - Verve Senior Living management, Mirandah Sinden

The number one thing I love about working at Gilmore Gardens is the residents. I’ve had a passion for working with seniors for a number of years now, and so the residents are pretty special at Gilmore Gardens.

It’s also a great group of staff that have been here for a long time, a lot of long-term staff members. And the company as a whole. I feel valued.

Gilmore Gardens is unique because we are managed and partly owned by Verve Senior Living, which is a wonderful Canadian management company that has been 40-plus years. The owners of Gilmore Gardens have been the same since day one, which is over 21 years.

We’re 50% owned by Gilmore Park United Church, which is right next door to us, and then the other 50% with Verve is a group of owners of local families, and now their children have taken over the parents. They’re very relatable. They’re regular, normal people.

I really feel that, as well as the church, their interests, yes, it’s a business, but they don’t make it seem like that. They’re very concerned about staff, about residents, their well-being. I’ve known them for a number of years now, and I feel their interests are in the right place.

I am from Ontario and I started my field in recreation therapy. That’s my original diploma. I worked in long-term care and psychiatric geriatrics in Ontario for a number of years. Then I moved out west.

I found myself at Gilmore Gardens from 2003 to 2008 for five years. The company really tries to promote within, so they encouraged me to go back to school, get business management, and be mentored.

When we opened a new community, I was their AGM and then the GM. Then I came back to Gilmore Gardens in 2016. I’ve been with the company for 18 years, but I’ve had two stints with Gilmore Gardens, so it’s a good place to be. I came back.

We have numerous years, this year included, won the Richmond Best Seniors Home Award, as per the readers of the Richmond News, as well as our Chamber of Commerce Leadership Business Awards Workplace of the Year Award. Within our community, we have a great reputation, and a lot of people have referred us that have had family members or neighbours. We are really involved in the community, whether it be with the theatres or Richmond Cares Richmond Gives, which gives back to the seniors, as well as the church relationship.

People know us. They know we are a strong-rooted community and with a great reputation. I think that a lot of people know Gilmore Gardens and they know we are the choice for independent living within Richmond.

A lot of our referrals are from people that are either in our community nearby or they’ve known people that have lived here or they do know someone that lives here. So that speaks volumes. The people tell other people.

I think that by giving excellent service, respectful services, and just a beautiful home, people walk into Gilmore Gardens and they say, “This feels like home.” It doesn’t feel like a facility or an institution. That’s nothing like what we are. You walk in, it’s warm. It’s a place that people want to be. Or they feel good when they walk in.

Residents have their own suites and they can participate in activities. They can have their own time for themselves. But if they want to get involved, they want to be a part of the community and volunteering, or the recreation programs, the meals, then they have that opportunity to be part of something.

A lot of residents are living alone. They perhaps need a little bit of extra support, or they’ve been struggling in different areas. So they come, and when we take away those have-tos in life, the things we don’t want to do, then they have the energy to do the things that they want to do, which is learn new things, join a program, volunteer, or just sit and have a cup of coffee with somebody and have a cribbage game.

There are just a number of things, or join in with the gardening club. We have beautiful, beautiful patios here, and people are encouraged to join in.

Our whole philosophy, actually, for people is that we are in their home. They’re not in my workplace. I am in their home. All of the staff have that attitude. So we become like a family, but we come into their home every day. We treat everybody with respect and dignity, choice. What do you want out of your life? When people come into our building and they see the residents are happy and healthy and joyful, it resonates all the way through the building ultimately.

It starts right from the very beginning when the team that meets the individual, gets to know them, and build that relationship. They know if somebody likes gardening, they know if they like games, they know if they like educational programs. That gets passed on through the staff.

Ultimately, the Life Enrichment team, which oversees the whole recreation activities, then does a life history questionnaire where they can actually learn more about the individual. But it takes time, that relationship building. It’s also a trust once they realize, okay, I can come to this and that.

All of our residents at Gilmore Gardens get a monthly activity calendar that highlights everything that’s going on for the month, as well as a weekly newsletter that goes out just to say, hey, just a reminder, these things are going on. If you want to participate, here you go. People then choose to come or not.

Sometimes we provide a little encouragement, like saying, hey, why don’t you want to give this a try? If you don’t like it, you don’t like it. If you do, you do. Also, the whole volunteering part, that’s huge here.

The majority of our volunteers are residents, and we try to find their passions, and then we’ll create something that inspires them. If we didn’t have a bridge club and somebody came in and they’re really passionate about bridge and they want to teach people to play bridge and then get a club going, then we’ll create that. We really try to find out how we can use people’s likes and interests that they already have, so they can continue that and even offer that to our community, or learn something new, which is also really exciting for a lot of people.

First and foremost, we encourage residents to continue the relationships that they have when they move in to Gilmore Gardens. If they go to a church down the road, if they volunteer at the food bank, if they go to the senior centre and play cribbage on Tuesdays or whatnot, we encourage them to do that. We try to really facilitate that and have that grow.

Some of the people actually even bring their groups to us. For instance, the Red Hat Society people will suddenly have a luncheon one day because one resident is the Red Hat lady, and now they’ll have a whole table. Or the Teachers Association, retired teachers, suddenly there’ll be a whole luncheon of retired teachers.

We really encourage people to not only go out to these communities and their interests, but also come back in. Then we just foster those relationships, whether it be the Quilchena Golf Club, or the Gateway Theatre, or Richmond Cares Richmond Gives. We stay in, we support our community. In return, they support us. So it’s a win-win for sure.

Our community is in a great location, actually. We’re in West Richmond and right at No. 1 and Blundell Road. Within walking distance, we have the dike where people can go for walks all along the dike.

We can go down No. 1 Road and be at Terra Nova Shopping Centre. That’s not as walkable, but the bus is right there, the 401. Seafair Shopping Mall is within walking distance, so a number of residents go to Seafair, the Safeway, Shoppers, and such.

The No. 1 bus also goes right into Easton, where a lot of supports are. People have their doctor’s offices, LifeLabs, and various other amenities there as well. So Gilmore Gardens is in a good location.

We do have weekly bus trips, so we do take our bus out for shopping excursions, whether it be to those local shopping centres or to a larger mall or other activities as well, so theatres and picnics and scenic drives and you name it. Those other local places, Seafair and Terra Nova, we go there regularly, but they can access that. A lot of our residents still drive, actually.

When people walk into our building, the front main lobby and into the main level, sometimes, actually quite regularly, people say they feel like they’re walking into a cruise ship. It’s really open. We’re nice, we’re classy, but we’re not stuffy.

Our building is actually a big X. The elevators are right in the middle, and then there are four wings on the X and four floors. So nobody has a huge walk to their suite or to any amenity really.

The hallways at Gilmore Gardens are so great that way that you can’t get turned around and you don’t have to fret that you’ve forgotten something and then you have to go all the way back. That is a definite plus.

Our grounds have beautiful grounds with lots of patios and common areas, gardens, and that’s definitely a plus for a lot of people to get that cup of coffee and go sit outside in the patio and see the flowers and visit family. That’s definitely a plus for the building.

I’m a country girl. I love pierogies. I like fancy foods, but you give me pierogies with some nice sautéed onions and bacon and sour cream, and I’m a happy girl. A lot of people like them as well.

We do a very fine dinner meal at Gilmore Gardens with three different options. All of the residents get that dinner as a part of their service package. There’s an option to purchase a lunch program, which is also nice for about half of our residents who like to take that up and join in.

The suites do have small kitchenettes so residents can make their own food in their suite. But the dinner is provided. It’s pretty special, something that people really look forward to in the day.

There are a number of considerations for sure. We have 130 residents. Everybody’s independent, they’re able to make their own choices. They know if they have an allergy to seafood or tomatoes and to ask the right questions. The staff are aware of that as well, but they also know what’s being put into the product.

We do have some diabetic options, but there’s always a healthy option for dessert. Whether you take it or not, that’s another thing, but there’s always fresh fruit or sugar-free yogurt or something else.

We also have a high Asian population at Gilmore Gardens. I would say close to 50%. A lot of our Asian residents are even British because they’re from Hong Kong. So we try to have some fish options and some various other options of choice. It seems to work out okay. We try to really listen to what people are asking for.

Of course, we do have a dietitian that’s available with our head office with Verve. We have corporate menus that we follow, and we have quite a high standard of product when it comes down to the meals, for sure.

Being independent living, the residents do make their own choices. They do facilitate their own care. But a number of our residents, actually about a third of our population, do have some sort of home support.

We don’t provide that. They are private organizations that come in and help them with some of those personal bathing or whatnot that they may need a little extra help with.

In-house, we can do extra laundry services, housekeeping, and maintenance. We can even do medication reminders. We can’t do medication management. We are not assisted living. We do not have registered care aides that work here, but there are a number of them in the building at any given time to support some of those individuals.

We do have a nurse on staff, an LPN, who is our health and wellness coordinator. She will work with the team and the families and the residents to not only ask for those referrals for an OT or a PT or whatever it could be with Vancouver Coastal Health, to keep somebody safe, happy, and healthy at Gilmore Gardens in their existing suite with maybe some supports that they pay privately for.

It does sometimes come to a point where people need to move to a higher level of care when it’s not safe for them to be here any longer. We work with the families, the resident and the health authority to try to facilitate that process. Sometimes it’s difficult, but it is something we do with integrity and with support and love

First and foremost, we talk to the resident. They are our customer and they’re the ones that we’re hoping to support and help facilitate those supports that we can help put into place for them.

If they’ve given us permission to talk to family, which is usually the case, there’s usually somebody in the family that is also looking out for their best interest, and we work together. We can have meetings. Right now we’re doing a lot of Zoom calls, and just really a lot of different referrals.

We have the ability to call Vancouver Coastal Intake to ask for some different referrals if somebody needs some equipment put into their suite, where they can be independent and safe. By all means, we do that. Then it’s just working with the resident and the family to see what we can do to support them at Gilmore Gardens.

There was a resident back when I worked at Gilmore Gardens before, her name was Marian Ferguson, and she was a lovely, lovely, lovely lady. There are a lot of lovely people here, but she lived here long after I left, and she wasn’t here when I came back.

You could hear her laugh anywhere on the main floor. She had one of those laughs that you could hear. Her daughter now is a part of a professional retired group that sometimes will come and have a catering event. I saw and heard her voice and her laugh, and I thought, oh my goodness, I went running. I was like, I know that laugh, and she has her mom’s laugh down.

There are a lot of very special people. I’ve got a few close to my heart for sure.

I’ve worked in various levels of care, as I mentioned earlier, as well as assisted living, and I think the people are living longer. They’re living longer, and they’re staying at home longer.

I don’t know how many times I hear this. People come and move into Gilmore Gardens, and months later, they say, “Why didn’t I do this years ago?” There’s a negative perception in society that a seniors community is a home. It can really have a negative image. We like to try to just get rid of that.

This is a community where people are thriving and enjoying their elderhood. So trying to educate people that it’s a good thing to come into a community like Gilmore Gardens where you can have purpose and thrive.

People are waiting too long to do that. That’s part of the industry’s changes I’ve seen. A long time ago, 75 was quite an elderly age, or 80 years old. We have a resident here who is 108. She just got a perfect hand in cribbage not too long ago. We have a number of centenarians who live here. I think about five that are 100 or older.

Sure, our healthcare system is good. But also giving people the purpose and the want and the drive to live longer. That’s also something that we strive for.

A lot of times, when people actually make the jump to come and have a tour or inquire about us, once they come in and they see what we are, it’s not what they thought, their perceptions of seniors communities.

The first thing that I can say is to ask questions and go for the tour. Typically, there’s something that either the senior themselves or the family member has been concerned about. Something has happened, something has shifted.

We try to find out what that need is and really show how the lives can be improved, as well as those concerns alleviated by being at Gilmore Gardens. That’s typically what we try to find out, what has brought you here today.

We’re always looking to improve and we grow and change and evolve as our people evolve. Nothing per se that I can say is in the works to be implemented, but I can say that we’re always growing, we’re always evolving, we’re always looking at what our needs are, what the residents’ needs are, and how we can accommodate those needs at Gilmore Gardens. 

Don’t wait too long. Do your due diligence, look around, see what community you think is best for yourself or your loved one, but don’t wait too long.

That’s the number one I’m seeing for people is that they’re sitting on that decision or they’re waiting until something happens. There’s lots of life to be had, especially when you have a lot of fun and good food and nice community. So just think about that, plan ahead.