Interview with The Concorde Retirement Residence - Verve Senior Living resident, Rose Marie Soullier

It was a good start for my new life. I have two children, one in Houston and one in Vancouver. They both have their own lives. I am at The Concorde Retirement Residence and I have found my family here.

Oh, gosh, yes. There are a lot of activities, a lot of choices. You won’t get bored if you have all the activities that we have here. I like puzzles. We have a nice puzzle group. We have chair yoga, which is very interesting, and baking. We do a little bit of baking in the kitchen, and I try and help out and show my know-how to whoever wants to know it.

We have a very close group. We help each other when we can, we talk to each other, and we go do things together. We share a lot of things in common. When there’s somebody new coming in, we help them out, like somebody helped us when we came in.

Some of our residents have little gardens too, and we plant our own little things. This year, seeing that the weather was so terrible, I even managed to get a whole meal of beans to cook from my little garden.

All the staff is wonderful, absolutely wonderful. You couldn’t have a better staff. Very, very knowledgeable, very helpful, and friendly. I have never seen staff like that united. The way these guys do it, it’s amazing.

My daughter went from Vernon all the way down the Okanagan looking for a place for me, and she called every one of the retirement homes and compared notes, and she chose the Concorde as the best top that she could find for me. It was very difficult for me at the beginning, but then you get a smile, you get help, you get to join things, and then all of a sudden you are part of the family.

It took a few weeks because I had to move from Vancouver. The move from Vancouver to here was a little hectic, but it worked out. It worked out perfect. I couldn’t have chosen a better place than the Concorde to be in.

I have talked to people that are looking for places too, and I don’t think it has anything to do with cost. I think it has to do with the surroundings of what we’re looking at.

I cannot really say improvement. You can’t improve more than what you give, what the Concorde is giving you. It’s just fabulous, the way the staff and the office people and the servers, everybody. Everybody has a smile for you in the morning. Then naturally, you get a smile too.

I can’t do anything different. This is the best I have found, the best they had found for me. I appreciate the work that my daughter went through to find me this place. She is happy that I am happy. So it’s a scale, right? If one is happy, the other one is happy.

Oh, my goodness. I don’t know what advice I can give. Everybody is united. Everybody is helpful here. You can’t improve on anything as far as I’m concerned. I got the best.

The health support is so good. If I need any health support, they come in and help me bathe and they help me get dressed. You can’t ask for anything better than this. You are not alone. We are all a little family, and we all help each other in one way or another.