L\u2019Chaim Adult Day Centre is now open five days a week. <\/i>(photo from L\u2019Chaim)<\/i><\/p>\n
L\u2019Chaim Adult Day Centre has received funding from Vancouver Coastal Health to expand its program. It can now offer its services to frail senior citizens in the community on a five-day-a-week, 16-clients-per-day basis.<\/p>\n
L\u2019Chaim first opened its doors on Sept. 14, 1985, in the Maccabee Room of Beth Israel Synagogue. At first, L\u2019Chaim operated only one day a week and was run completely by volunteers. A project of the National Council of Jewish Women and the Jewish Family Services Agency, it was able to secure funding from the Jewish Community Fund and Council, as well as NCJW.<\/p>\n
Soon afterward, a committee was formed to secure funding from the BC Ministry of Health, which allowed the program to operate two days a week. Ten years later, L\u2019Chaim moved to the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, thanks to a $400,000 grant from the BC government, which enabled the JCC to renovate the premises to meet L\u2019Chaim\u2019s needs. On April 1, 1996, L\u2019Chaim opened at the JCC and, since then, it has been operating three days a week, serving 13 clients a day.<\/p>\n
As the Jewish population has grown and aged, the number of clients seeking L\u2019Chaim\u2019s services has increased. Unlike other adult day centres in Vancouver, L\u2019Chaim has a cultural mandate to accommodate Jewish seniors who live outside Vancouver\u2019s geographical boundaries, but prefer to frequent L\u2019Chaim precisely because of the Jewish component of its activities. This has not precluded the intake of seniors in the area who, though not themselves Jewish, want to attend L\u2019Chaim because of its cultural programming and level of care, but demand has been greater than L\u2019Chaim can service and the wait list and wait times are long.<\/p>\n
With the recent expansion, under the supervision of L\u2019Chaim\u2019s trained activity specialists, more participants will be able to benefit from the variety of programs offered, including exercise sessions, discussion groups, live entertainment, expressive art and garden therapy, games, and day trips into the community. Participants receive a culturally and nutritionally appropriate meal prepared fresh daily, consisting of a three-course kosher lunch tailored to their dietary needs. As well, L\u2019Chaim has a nurse on the premises who supervises medications, monitors participants\u2019 health status and other aspects. Of course, Shabbat and Jewish holidays are occasions for special celebrations, often in conjunction with other stakeholders and programs at the JCC.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/span>\u201cOld age,\u201d as Tennyson wrote, \u201chath yet his honour and his toil,\u201d and the longer people can stay at home surrounded by loved ones and visit those places that have become familiar, the better off we all are. L\u2019Chaim is honoured that it can provide care and comfort to the frail elderly and thereby offer support to their relatives and caregivers. Anyone who goes by the JCC will see that it is a hub of activity and being located within its walls makes L\u2019Chaim all the more vibrant. Relatives can drop off their loved ones and take advantage of JCC activities; L\u2019Chaim clients can see people they know who drop by the office.<\/p>\n Now that L\u2019Chaim has obtained funding to expand its services, it looks forward to growing from strength to strength, and this will require time and money. Fortunately, L\u2019Chaim has an active board of committed individuals, as well as day-to-day onsite volunteers, who aid its director, Leah Deslauriers.<\/p>\n Deslauriers was hired by the JCC as the seniors program coordinator shortly after she graduated from the gerontology program at Simon Fraser University. In 2008, she started overseeing L\u2019Chaim, when their administrator went on vacation, and she left her position at the JCC and became the director of L\u2019Chaim in 2017. The position includes intake, fundraising and strategic planning, and it is in large part due to her accomplishments that L\u2019Chaim now embarks on the next stage in its development.<\/p>\n L\u2019Chaim benefits from the financial support of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, several Jewish foundations, and the donations, large and small, of many friends and supporters. To all of them, L\u2019Chaim is grateful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To see if you or your loved one is eligible for L\u2019Chaim\u2019s services, contact the home and community care office in your local health authority or get in touch with Deslauriers by calling 604-638-7275.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2013 Courtesy L\u2019Chaim Adult Day Centre<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" L\u2019Chaim Adult Day Centre is now open five days a week. (photo from L\u2019Chaim) L\u2019Chaim Adult Day Centre has received funding from Vancouver Coastal Health to expand its program. It can now offer its services to frail senior citizens in the community on a five-day-a-week, 16-clients-per-day basis. L\u2019Chaim first opened its doors on Sept. 14, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[42,43,1679,617,8302,3714],"class_list":["post-43609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-jcc","tag-jewish-community-centre","tag-lchaim-adult-day-centre","tag-leah-deslauriers","tag-lifestyle","tag-seniors"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}