Centre Care holds outdoor get-together for nursing home residents, families

BELLEFONTE, Pa. (WJAC) — It seems like an eternity since the start of the pandemic, when very few people could even enter nursing homes.

But Centre Care's new facility opened a year ago in the midst of that.

"Centre Care had moved about a year ago to our new facility that we're staying at today, and this is our one-year anniversary. So, we wanna do something special for our residents and families, to be able to come out and enjoy a day with each other," Andrew Naugle, the facility's administrator told 6 News.

Naugle said it took five years — from construction, to moving residents into the facility.

"The residents really love the space. There's a lot of community space for the residents, a lot more dining rooms for the residents as well, to be able to use and spend time together," he explained.

"And we also have a lot more areas of sunshine, bright lights. It's not a 1950s building anymore. It's a 2000s building, which is great for the residents."

One resident named Susan Lingle told 6 News, "It's wonderful, yes. The residents are really enjoying this. They needed this...'cause we don't get to go out much in the wintertime, you know. So, this is nice."

And getting all this up and running was no small feat.

"It was challenging. It was an interesting process," Betsy Boyer, the president of the Centre Care board, said.

"I'm not sure we would've started, had we known we were gonna spend the biggest portion of it doing it through a pandemic. There were periods where we couldn't get in to see what was going on in the building."

But, residents like Lingle think all that hard work paid off, saying, "I love it. I love it here. Yes, I do. It's a very nice facility."

"It's big. It's huge."

Boyer said the residents are "all very excited. I've had several family members already say to me how cool that we can do this again because we've not been able to do anything like this for two years."

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