In July, 2008, we christened the Sylvan Café as a truly operational café. The café is opened six days a week and residents may come to the café for sit-down dining at their leisure. The menu is extensive, with the choice to eat in the café or have their meal prepared and packaged "to go". In addition to the café-style dining, The Manor Market opened in July as well. Residents now have the convenience of shopping at the Manor Market if they just need to pick up a few items, thus saving time and gasoline.

On July 4, 2009, a Fourth of July celebration occurred around our newly constructed gazebo. It is wheelchair accessible and is being enjoyed by residents of Hover Manor and Beatrice Hover Assisted Living. The gazebo is the first phase of what is to become our Remembrance Garden, complete with rose gardens, planter boxes, and other landscaping.

The middle of September, 2009, will feature the grand opening of the in-house Wellness Center at Hover Manor. The first phase to open will be "Hover at Home" services. For a nominal fee our independent residents will be able to use these services to help with housekeeping, laundry, grocery shopping. These services will be non-nursing in nature, but we will be able to stand-by during showers, give medication reminders, and even accompany a resident into their doctor's office. With the development of each phase, we will ultimately have an exercise room with oversight, a nutritionist, cooking demonstrations, classes such as Tai Chi, Yoga, and other wellness-based programs, and an exercise trail around our community, to name a few.

The Hover Manor Wellness Center opened its doors on October 21, 2009 to the great excitement of the residents. The goal of the Wellness Center is to promote all levels of wellness - emotional, intellectual, spiritual and vocational. Residents are enjoying a variety of clubs and activities, exercise programs, speakers on health and wellness-related topics, and the many resources available to them through the Wellness Center. In March, through the Wellness Center, we were able to work out an arrangement with Longmont United Hospital whereby we would pay for any resident who wished to participate in an Ai Chi class in their warm water therapy pool on Wednesdays.

Hover at Home Services, the fourth component of the Wellness Center, has been especially well-received by the residents. Residents are able to contract with in-house "home assistants" to get help with housekeeping, laundry, errands, grocery shopping, pet care, stand by with showers, verbal medication reminders, and companion visits/welfare checks. These non-nursing services were established to help residents stay independent longer and to be able to "age in place". The charges for these services are: $7.50 per half hour; and $14.00 per hour.