Heavenly Care Assisted Living Agency has celebrated the beginning of an exciting new venture. It's the fulfillment of wishes by the late Gerhard (George) Dyck.
Born in 1935, George lived his entire life on the homestead of Neuenberg farms, which was purchased in 1925 by his parents, Peter and Anna.
Carrying out his wishes, the home has been transformed into a 9-room assisted living facility in the Village of Neuenberg.
Celma Pinto is the CEO of Heavenly Care.
"He was one of our clients for three years, and before he passed away he requested Heavenly Care Agencies use his house to accommodate the elderly people, people with disability, and people who are looking for space due to the shortage of nursing homes all over the province," said Pinto. "And this is what we are doing today, fulfilling George Dyck's wish."
Arveen Aulakh is the operation manager for Heavenly Care.
"It's our first location here, the facility itself, where we're going to bring people in and take care of them. Before this, we have always visited client homes or other facilities where we sent our healthcare aides support workers, or companions to take care of. But now we have people with us, and we are going to send our healthcare aides to our facility. So it's quite different and a new experience and we're looking forward to it."
Sandra Unrau lives next to the Neuenberg Farms Homestead and was a neighbor with George Dyck and their family for 40 years. She's excited to have something like this so close to home.
"It will be very nice for people that can come for days, for the weekend, for the week, or long periods. It will be nice just to have that in the village, and it will be very nice, even for myself, to even come and see the people here."
Neuenberg's Tammy Bergen says when she and her family first moved to the community, George Dyck was the first one to come over and welcome them.
She said the new Personal Care Home is already benefitting the community. "First of all, it's already benefitting my daughter, Kate as the assistant cook, so it's already adding value to our community because they're hiring local."
- With files from Nicole Klassen -
