Monthly Company News from Springs at Simpsonville

November 25, 2020
The Springs at Simpsonville Staff
Company News & Announcements, Memory Care Simpsonville SC

Reading Time: 4 minutes

November 23, 2020

Subject: Springs at Simpsonville Monthly Newsletter

Dear Springs Residents and Family Members (or as I like to say “Our Extended Family”),

Happy Thanksgiving & and early Merry Christmas! I am pleased to continue to report that The Springs remains COVID FREE. This is a wonderful blessing and something we are especially grateful for this Thanksgiving.

As the holidays are upon us, I want to be sure to update you on where we stand surrounding visitation. The CDC and DHEC are strongly encouraging families NOT to remove their loved ones from all Assisted Living / Long Term Care Facilities for holiday visits. Obviously, we would not prohibit you from taking them home for a holiday visit, but they are required to be in a quarantined room for 14 days once they leave the premises. This is a firm requirement that we have no wiggle room on. The 14 days is defined as the mandatory window of time to allow for incubation of COVID-19. Even if the resident is without symptoms, we are still required to provide a quarantined room for them upon return.

We recognize that this creates an especially challenging burden for our Memory Care families because it requires companion care services 24/7 once they return to the building. In an effort to assist with this financial challenge, we have recently created a quarantine unit that will be used primarily for memory care residents. We will be hiring agency staffing on behalf of families in this situation thus creating a shared expense vs and individual expense.

In my last newsletter, I mentioned that we have built our plans for both INDOOR and OUTDOOR visitation. This is in place and ready to go, however, we are not permitted to begin executing this until the COVID positivity rate drops below 10% for Greenville County. We will definitely let you all know once we are able to begin this visitation.

As of right now, we are continuing to execute our video / virtual visits and closed window visits. Please continue to e-mail Kari Stritch karis@caravita.com with all your visitation requests. An e-mail will really help our communication process, as she will be able to provide you a confirmation e-mail on each of your requested window visits. Kari is our new Life Enrichment (Activity) Director and we could not be more pleased to welcome her to our leadership team.

Update on COVID Testing:

Just as a FYI, we continue to test all our staff weekly at this point in time. We are not required to test the residents again unless we have an active case of COVID in the building. (So far so good)

New Additions To Our Springs Team:

We are delighted to welcome Nancy Long as our Director of Sales and Marketing. Nancy has deep and broad experience in both senior living and general sales and marketing. She has hit the ground running and we look forward to many of the new ideas and initiatives she will bring to The Springs.
We are also super excited to announce that we have found our new nurse! Jennifer DeRogatis, LPN will begin her on-boarding process shortly after Thanksgiving and be with us full time right after Christmas. Jennifer has spend 17 years as a nurse in Assisted Living and Memory Care. She will be relocating to the Upstate from New Jersey, so please give her a warm “southern welcome”. We are thrilled to have her joining our team.
Life Enrichment also has a new team member. Please welcome Jasmine Robinson to our weekend activities role. Jasmine has also worked in senior care for several years in both an activities and care capacity. You will likely get the chance to interact with her on your weekend visitations. She is yet another great addition to the team.

Looking Ahead To December:

We are now permitted to execute small group Activities. (10 or less). Yay! As a result, our December activities calendar is enclosed in this mailing.
We are planning to take the residents out to view the Christmas lights at Pickens Motor Speedway a couple of evenings in December.
The Activities bus in back on the road and everyone is enjoying a chance to actually get out of the building for a short while. (We are just touring at this point in time, as we are still unable to get off the bus)

The Springs Will Participate in Sippin’ in Simpsonville’s Holiday Wine Tasting:

This fun holiday event takes place in downtown Simpsonville on Friday,12/11 from 5:30 – 10:00 pm. Please try to stop by and visit with us at our booth that evening!

Announcing our Adopt a Door Decorating Contest:

For many of you that have been with The Springs over the years, you are familiar with our door decorating contest. We plan to repeat this great activity, but like so many other things this year.. it will need to change slightly.
Kari and her team are asking each family to decorate their family member’s door for the holidays. (If you have the interest and energy to take on another door too… just let Kari know)
We will send all the details in a separate e-mail communication to all of you, but for now, start thinking about how you might bring some joy to our building with your custom door decoration. Prizes will be awarded for “Best Use of a Snowman”, “Best Traditional”, “Best Religious”, “Most Colorful”, Most Christmas-y”, “Best Wreath” and “Best Family Theme”.
Kari and her team will take care of getting the door decorations displayed on the doors, we are just asking for you to drop off your best creative effort for us to install.
Kari will be asking of decorations by 12/6/20 .. so put your thinking hat on this week.

We’re Making Big Plans To Celebrate Our 20th Anniversary:

The Springs will be celebrating 20 years of service to seniors in the Simpsonville area in 2021! We are building several plans to celebrate this milestone accomplishment and many of these plans include YOU. You will be receiving a special invitation shortly to provide a testimonial of The Springs that may be used in our 2021 advertising. Watch for more details and get ready for some great fun in 2021!

As always, I want to thank you for entrusting us with the care of your loved one. It means a great deal to us! Stay Safe, Healthy and Patient!