can you save Kathryn Wanlass Adult Day Center ???

[annm4peace]

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 2:28 AM CDT
To the editor:

Sadly, it appears that the Kathryn Wanlass Adult Day Center will go under despite its 24-year history of providing excellent care to our local citizens, and bringing national and international acclaim to the Sunshine Terrace Foundation. It seems a sad way to pay tribute to the philanthropist who paid for the building. It is disconcerting when the CEO (and board) of a managed health-care facility can discontinue one branch of care behind closed doors, without exhausting all possibilities.

Although Mr. Seria said they left no stone unturned, the fact that it was a total surprise to the entire community, including other agencies in the valley, means they hadn’t tried too hard. The Senior Center, for example, said they would be happy to help, but were never approached. In this valley, we have health-care consultants with national experience the board never contacted. The community was never given a chance to express support or fund raise (in fact, they were asked NOT to write letters). There are national, state and local grants available for adult day care specifically. AmeriCorp is alive and well and working in other programs in Cache Valley; were they considered? It doesn’t look like every possibility was explored!

I think many in the community don’t realize what a treasure the ADC is. Unless you have seen powerful and talented men and women cruelly reduced in stature and ability by Alzheimer’s disease; or young, creative, productive parents unable to care for their tiny children because of MS, brain damage, ALS, or any other number of painful and crippling diseases; unless you have lived day in and day out as the sole caregiver of one of these struggling loved ones, you may not understand what a MIRACLE it is to be able to have people right here in our valley who are willing to help you carry that burden. People who will treat your husband, wife, mother, child with the same respect and dignity they treat their own family.

The vision that Sara Sinclair, Bonnie Smith and the original Board of Directors saw and brought to our community is even more relevant now that we face an exploding aging population, and young veterans coming home to their families with physical and mental disabilities. Are they ready to go straight to the nursing home?

Whether you quote Winston Churchill, Hubert Humphrey, the Sermon on the Mount or Mahatma Gandhi, the message is the same; in this case, Pearl S. Buck: “Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.”

Robbin Black

North Logan
**

**** Can't the State of UT give a grant to keep it open ?? ****

* Daycare for the Elderly helps keep them from going to a Nursing Home and ends up saving taxpayers on the long run.


*** Contact the CEO David Seria
Sunshine Terrace Foundation, Inc.
225 North 200 West
Logan, Utah 84321-3805
Phone: [phone]
Toll Free: 1-866-752-0411

David Seria Foundation CEO
435) 754-0216
[phone] fax