Interview with Wintergreene Estates - Verve Senior Living management, Annette Polasek

The three things I love about my job at Wintergreene Estates are meeting with new clients who come through our community, the engagement and interaction with our residents, and the families who reside there. New residents who come through Wintergreene all have diverse backgrounds and personalities, and it’s wonderful to get to know them and their past history. Everyone has a story, and certainly all our residents who reside at Wintergreene Estates each have their own stories. So I love to hear their story.

What drew me to this field was my background. My grandparents and my parents had a rental property business, so you might say it’s in my blood. I was able, as a child, to work in the business a little bit while growing up. Again, it was that interaction with people, so that’s what drew me to the field. I have been there now for about nine years, and it’s been a wonderful nine years working with our residents and staff.

When I first joined Wintergreene Estates, what I noticed about the community was the warm, welcoming atmosphere. I found the staff to be very engaging, very warm, and lots of fun to be around. I loved the compassion that I saw from our staff that was transferred to our residents.

What differentiates Wintergreene Estates from other retirement communities is that we have a very warm, inviting, welcoming environment. Our staff is very engaging with our residents, so I think that goes a long way in building that relationship. Of course, we offer four lifestyles there that residents can come into and transition through based on their care needs, their preferences, and the level of independence that they’re looking to maintain.

We have four lifestyles. The first one is what we call Senior Apartments. This enables residents who want to maintain a strong level of independence but perhaps tap into some services. They would have an apartment with a full kitchen, in-suite laundry, 10 meals a month that they can draw from, with the option to purchase additional meals if they wish, and housekeeping every two weeks. So it is very independent, but they are tapping into some services.

We also have what's called Independent Supportive Living. This means residents still have a fair degree of independence, but they are now looking for some supportive services. They’re not cooking anymore; all the meals are provided for them, housekeeping is every week, and we do some safety checks around meal times and a safety check late in the morning. It’s independent, but you’re now tapping into services. You can also tap into some healthcare support services that perhaps enable you to remain independent longer in your apartment.

The next lifestyle we call personal care households. It is a higher level of care where residents are living in a self-contained household that is staffed 24/7 with a combination of LPNs and resident assistants. They look after the care needs of our residents, the medication management, they prepare and serve the food right in the households, and they look after all the leisure activities, housekeeping, and laundry services.

Another component of the personal care households is our memory care unit, which is a secured unit, and it provides a safe environment for residents that have advanced dementia, Alzheimer’s, and may be at a risk for wandering. They have a safe community in which to reside. It’s an attractive feature because residents can move in and, if possible, age in place. It minimizes the number of moves that a senior resident will make in their lifetime.

The multiple levels of care create an environment that they’re comfortable with, where they know the staff and have made friends with their fellow residents. I think it’s a safe environment for the residents to enjoy for many years without perhaps making another move.

Our managing company, Verve, has signature programs which we’re very excited about. These programs enable residents to perhaps exercise their creativity and get physical exercise. One of the programs we have is a signature program called Fit Minds. It has some cognitive components to it. It includes word exercises that can perhaps exercise different parts of the brain. That’s a very popular program at Wintergreene Estates.

Another program we have is Meet Me at the MoMA, and this is a series of art classes. There are two components to it. One would be the intellectual component, a lecture series, and the second component would be the artistic series. Residents learn about an artist or a certain artistic style through a lecture series, and then they have an opportunity to apply those concepts in creating their own art.

We have many activities at Wintergreene. We do have our Wii bowling leagues, shuffleboard leagues, Forever in Motion exercise, and happy hour, where residents can gather and enjoy a drink and some appetizers. We have a fitness room, a library, a knitting club, and we have an in-house choir. Residents who love music and perhaps sang in their earlier years have the opportunity to be part of this choir.

Within the memory care unit, they do have a separate memory care calendar. It would be activities that would appeal to whatever their cognitive situation is. They can also take part in entertainment that comes in, and they can be part of the exercise program. So yes, they have the same opportunity.

One of my favorite menu options is an asparagus crepe that our chef Amy makes. Amy is a Red Seal chef at Wintergreene, and it is definitely one of her signature items.

The menu at Wintergreene Estates follows a corporate menu, so it has certain choices that are perhaps offered in all the homes, but there is some room for creativity for Amy to certainly introduce some items that show her creativity in serving our residents. Our menu always offers choices. For lunch, we usually offer a soup, two choices of an entrée, and a dessert. Dinner, which is the largest meal of the day, offers salad, two choices of an entrée, a potato or starch, two vegetables, and a dessert as well.

We do have another signature program with Verve, and it’s called Living Loving Local. That means every month we feature a local produce item. It’s featured in the menu throughout the month and will show up in the entrée, the dessert, or the soup. We also have a nice display in the common area where residents can learn a little bit about that produce. For example, for the month of November, it’s potatoes. In December, it will be cranberries.

For residents who have some dietary needs or preferences, they can access what we call an alternative menu. It might offer lighter choices such as a piece of grilled chicken, maybe a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, or a cold egg plate. It’s a lighter menu that they can choose from if they wish. Generally, we do find the options that are offered on the menu seem to satisfy our residents in making choices.

There is the memory of a specific resident. He was a retired minister, and he loved to cook, and he had a special family recipe. He approached our staff to ask if he could help make this recipe, this entrée, with our chef, and then serve it to the residents. That was quite memorable. It was a joy for that resident to kind of reach back into his heritage and share that recipe with all the residents at Wintergreene. That was very memorable for everybody, the staff and the residents.

We’re known as the premier residence in Regina. We do community outreach where we can. We’ve come to be known as a home that cares about our community and likes to share what we have to offer. We do try to help out where we can, whether it’s through supporting the arts or the sporting community, or perhaps something called Senior Adopt a Senior.

With that, we do outreach to seniors and deliver a hot lunch once a week, and we’ll do this for maybe about six weeks. So we do try to reach out in different capacities within the community and support what makes Regina thrive.

We have two courtyards on either side of our dining room, which is really the feature of the grounds of Wintergreene Estates. In the spring, summer, and fall, residents enjoy sitting out there and enjoying the fresh air. They gather in small groups and like to visit. Families will come in and use that space as well. So it has become a very special place for residents and their families to meet and visit.

Every year, we have a beautiful Christmas gala dinner for our residents, usually in early December. It’s an event where the residents dress up, our building has been decorated for Christmas with beautiful lights and Christmas trees, and each resident can invite two guests. It’s a lovely dinner, and we usually end up serving about 250 people on our main floor.

It’s a lovely event that residents look forward to every year, and it’s an opportunity for their families to come in and experience our fine dining, our beautiful environment, and that interaction with the staff.

We have on staff a registered nurse. She is our health and wellness manager, so she’s part of that tracking system to monitor and ensure that our residents’ needs are being met. She often will sit with our residents to determine if there are any changing needs. It really is a two-way street. Our nurse and our staff may observe some changes happening with our residents, and other times it is the family or the resident coming to the staff to talk about changes in their health.

It's a constant collaboration, ensuring that our residents’ needs are met.

In the next 5 to 10 years, we are seeing an aging population, so I do feel that we will see more residents coming to us with perhaps a few higher care needs. But I also think the baby boomers are going to be retiring, so then we may start to see again a bit of a younger population coming into Wintergreene and other retirement communities.

Some of the areas that will change will be perhaps more technology being offered. We’ll see more interaction through Zoom or Skype. I think we’ll see more technology come into play, both with care needs and leisure activities.

My advice is to gather information and then come and visit our community. Together we would sit down, and I would help our potential residents sort out what are the needs they’re looking for. Is Wintergreene the right fit? What activities are you looking for? What level of independence are you coming to us with?

Visiting our community enables you to experience our environment, our fine dining, our engaging staff, and to feel the warm, welcoming community that we are. I like to invite clients in so that we can sit down and discuss what we have to offer, but also listen to what the needs are that a client is coming to us with.