NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Sunshine Meadows Gala is coming up Friday at the Sandhills Event Center in Hutchinson. The goal for this year's event is to fund a matching grant from the Mabee Foundation for a dementia unit.
"The new unit will be for people who are just now, we're seeing the symptoms of Alzheimer's or dementia," said Carla Barber with Sunshine Meadows Retirement Community. "We want them to be able to have a happy and fulfilling life. My dad had it and he was confused a lot. We had to be able to explain things to him quite often for him to be comfortable. This new neighborhood, we're calling it ALMCU, assisted living memory care unit."
This would be a transitional place between assisted living and memory care. The home still has a few more months to raise the Mabee matching funds, but they really need a push right now.
"The foundation has strict rules," Barber said. "They've been around for a long time and they've helped a lot of people to get something built. One of the things that they say is you can't put a shovel in the ground, you can't put a spade in the ground until this money is raised. If it's already started that way, they're not interested. They want to be a portion of what makes the thing happen."
The goal for those patients, as it is for everyone at Sunshine Meadows, is quality of life.
"We're wanting to make sure that these folks have things to do every day," Barber said. "If they're on a journey, we want to help them be on that journey. If they're wandering the halls every day looking for something to do, there's going to be stuff to do. It's going to be a neighborhood."
Tickets for the gala are $75 and you can buy them online, or get them the day of the event for $100.