Prepared for the Unpredictable
Older adults in mid-retirement move to a village like ours for a multitude of reasons: a healthier lifestyle, renouncing homeowning chores, avoiding social isolation, or a desire to lighten any future burden on adult children. Behind such a list you can perceive a common thread: having access to solutions and to answers to the numerous “what-ifs” of age, be they the expected kind (cognitive decline, impaired mobility, facing the cost of clinical care…) or the unexpected kind.
Trust us, at Cross Keys Village we’ve had our share of situations to handle in the last 112 years: devastating fires (thankfully with no loss of life), outbreaks to manage, some grueling winters that seemed like they would never end, and a historic-level recession that hit us just as we were finishing a large apartment wing. The latest situation – protecting ourselves against a new communicable disease – appears, at this stage, to be not only unexpected but also unpredictable.
However, the villagers, residents and the workers at Cross Keys Village can rest a little easier knowing that CKV is prepared, and that we have been preparing for the last 112 years for this situation. Senior living communities are under the oversight of strict governing authorities at the federal and state levels. Emergency preparedness plans are constantly revised and updated. We shared with you last year how a deadly out-of-state heatwave caused us to purchase expensive equipment we hope we will never need to use.
But enough about infection control. We are in the people business, after all. Months or years from now, when this is all behind us, what we will remember is how isolated residents were able to communicate with family through technology. We had used this method of communication in the past, but never on such a scale. Seeing the emotion on our residents’ faces reminded us why we are here during those tense and long hours. Especially during this uneasy season, Cross Keys Village is and will remain true to its long-held core values.
