Pleasant Manor’s next transformation just got a six-figure push from the community.
Two donations totalling $150,000 were presented Friday afternoon for Radiant Care’s planned intergenerational community hub and fitness and wellness centre in Virgil.
The project will turn 25,000 square feet of the former long-term care home at Pleasant Manor into a shared space for seniors, students, children and the wider community.
A $100,000 personal memorial donation and a $50,000 donation from the Virgil Business Association were presented at the old long-term care home building at 1743 Four Mile Creek Rd.
The larger donation was made through Woodwinds, the family foundation of Catherine Novick, Leslie Ray and Dylan Larkin, in memory of Gordon Edwin Powers Ray. The money will support the broader redevelopment.
Novick said her husband lived for years with a debilitating chronic neurological condition. While the family was able to get care at home for a time, she said Niagara-on-the-Lake did not have enough residential care when they needed it.
That meant making the difficult decision to temporarily move him to Royal Henley Retirement Community in St. Catharines.
“We’ve lived the experience,” Novick said.
She said her husband died Dec. 6, just as he was being offered a place in Pleasant Manor’s long-term care home.
“We’ve lived in Niagara-on-the-Lake for 16 years now,” she said. “It would have been wonderful to have him closer, but that’s just the way life goes.”
For Novick, the donation is meant to help more people find care and support closer to home.
“Knowing that support is close by, when needed, is very necessary and reassuring, for both those in need and for their caregivers,” she said.
The Virgil Business Association’s $50,000 donation is earmarked for fitness and wellness equipment, including elliptical machines, rowing machines, spin machines and passive exercise equipment.
Richard Wall, speaking for the association, said the group has a long history with both Virgil and Pleasant Manor.
The association previously helped fund amenities at Pleasant Manor, including a hot tub in 1983 and five-pin bowling alleys in 1994. Wall said he believes the new hub could become something other communities look to.
“My hope is that we become the shining star, and hopefully maybe some of the other communities like ours, across Ontario, maybe across Canada, might follow our lead,” he said.
Radiant Care chief executive officer Tim Siemens said the donations show the project is already drawing support from beyond Pleasant Manor.
“It’s exciting that the community is rallying around a project that many people in the Niagara-on-the-Lake community will benefit from, particularly our community of senior citizens,” Siemens said.
The redevelopment is planned for the old long-term care home on the Pleasant Manor property, not the new long-term care building that opened nearby in December.
Siemens said the 25,000-square-foot space will be retrofitted to include a fitness and wellness centre and a “living classroom” for Niagara College students.
The college is expected to bring its first group of 20 personal support worker students to the site in September, Siemens said.
The lower level of the building is also planned to become a daycare with space for up to 96 children.
That mix is at the heart of the intergenerational vision: children in daycare, students training for health-care work and seniors living above the space.
While the former long-term care portion of the building is being redeveloped, Siemens said there are still seniors living independently on the second floor in 18 apartment-style life lease units.
