Weekly Update June 11, 2021
June 11, 2021
To: Solheim Employees, Residents, Family Members and Stakeholders
From: Sam Oden, CEO of Solheim Senior Community
With all the media coverage of the planned June 15th “re-opening” of California, I’m sure you’re wondering how this landmark will affect Solheim. Although I certainly share everyone’s excitement about this wonderful milestone in our collective process of slowly and carefully “returning to normal,” I want to take the opportunity to remind everyone that as a dedicated senior living community, Solheim represents a special case: We are highly regulated by several different agencies, and a number of them have not yet provided guidance on how and when we should change our guidelines. Therefore, for the time being, we will be continuing to follow all of the same suggested practices as we have been following (see below)—with the sole exception that you no longer need to schedule your visits with Kathy Rust.
Subject to that one exception, for visitations throughout campus—from our Health Center, to our Residential and Assisted Living Campus, to our Halvorson Memory Care Neighborhood—we still ask for your continued partnership and diligence in continuing to follow all of these important rules, until further notice:
All visitors must still continue to check in when they arrive on campus (including temperature and screening questions) and sign our COVID-19 waiver;
We ask that all visitors wear masks and practice social distancing
All residents, regardless of vaccination status, may have “in-room” visits;
Any personal “in-room” visits in our Health Center should be scheduled in common areas, or when the roommate is out of the room; and
We still continue to encourage outdoor visits or visits in our common areas as much as possible.
As we wrap up the interior remodel of our Halvorson Memory Care campus, I would also ask any interested family members of our residents to reach out to Christina McDonald (cmcdonald@solheimsenior.org) to pass along meaningful photos or small mementos of your loved ones, which we will use to decorate the “Memory Boxes” that will be installed outside of each Halvorson apartment. This will not only help to beautify Halvorson’s halls, but it will also provide our Halvorson residents with a sweet and poignant reminder that they have truly arrived back at their apartment…
Pastor Violeta Sanders, Solheim’s Chaplain and the newest member of our wonderful staff, is available for our residents and family members. Should you wish to visit with Pastor Violeta, you may reach her directly at pastor@solheimsenior.org, or by calling our front desk.
As I mentioned last week, our Health Center room renovations have now been completed! Renovations of the Sensory Garden and other outdoor spaces continue, and we also continue to thank you for your patience as these projects move forward. We are very excited to see the results and to have some refreshed outdoor spaces for our residents and families to enjoy later this Summer!
As of today’s writing, I am very happy to report that we have no new confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 anywhere on campus.
If you have any specific questions, please direct them to Tina Antypas at 323 257-7518 X225 or tantypas@solheimsenior.org.org.