You cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up.
Maybe your sense of belonging comes from your family, your friends, your faith community, the clubs or organizations in which you participate.
Now is the time every gardener in the Beatitudes Community Garden waits for. Vegetables and fruits are ripening and need picking and distribution.
We need pickers from each of the Campus buildings. It means going to the Garden every other day with a basket and picking ripe vegetables. And bringing them back to the lobby of your residence building. If you need help identifying such veggies, a phone call to experienced gardeners listed below will help you. You will also find guides to picking posted in the Garden.
If you are interested, please call Mike Gilman x17438 or Melissa Frey x18115. We will be happy to meet with you for an orientation.
Melissa and Mike
There is something holy and sacred in having the courage to ask the hard questions of God especially when those questions often have no answers
I thank you all for allowing me to bring joy into your lives and I appreciate all the community we build together. We will continue to have fun and expand our culture in the next few months.
May we, like Küng be purposely bold in our thinking and faith and brave on our pilgrimage of life.
A good sermon should have a good beginning and a good ending, and they should be as close together as possible.
A Happy Easter to you all! It was wonderful to join with others in our Campus community at our Campus Easter Sunrise Service this year as we heard and rejoiced in prayer and praise; “Jesus Christ is ris’n today, Alleluia! Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia! Who did once upon the cross Alleluia! Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!”
We are showing that we are Beatitudes Strong because our campus currently is COVID-19 free. As the spread continues to decrease in Maricopa County and here on campus, we have been able to decrease the frequency of staff testing per our regulating agencies. We no longer will be doing twice a week testing for staff working in Plaza View or the Health Care Center.
Dear Beatitudes Community,
Beatitudes Campus is in Week 3 of our phased-in re-opening. I can’t tell you what joy it brings our residents and staff to regain social connections and have a life full of ordinary moments – coffee with a neighbor, a game of bridge, a long walk around campus. After a year of disruption, the very ordinary moments have become extraordinary. For Independent Living residents, the re-opening guidelines for the coming week are the same as the past week. We have done well and protected each other during the current phase. We will be expanding our re-openings at the end of this month, so watch for details. Of course, we require mask wearing in all areas (except for resident apartments) and ask that you stay physically distant from others who are not part of your group.
For our licensed areas, re-openings are regulated by state and county health departments. For our assisted living areas (Plaza View and Early Memory Support), we have received guidance for a controlled re-opening. Residents may leave their buildings and walk outside and enter certain buildings throughout campus. Communal dining in Plaza View and in the Bistro are now available if reservations are made; meal deliveries will still be available. Up to two visitors, seven days a week can visit residents in assisted living, indoors or outdoors. It is with such joy that I saw an assisted living resident ready to start his daily walk – with a bottle of water and a granola bar in hand, he could feel the fresh air and feel the warmth of the sun. For our health care center, we are able to have indoor and outdoor visitation for our residents in Sierra Springs (3rd floor), but for Vermilion Cliffs (4th floor), our advanced memory support area, we are in outbreak status until March 26, as a direct care worker tested positive for COVID-19 a week ago. This means that the residents cannot have visitors, except for compassionate care.
Visitor Guidelines can be found on our website (https://beatitudescampus.org/beatitudes-family/) and clicking on Visitor Guidelines. Independent Living Guidelines can also be found in the Roadrunner (current issues are posted on our website (https://beatitudescampus.org/beatitudes-family/) and clicking on Information for Residents). If you have any questions, you can email us at [email protected].
We continue to follow our staff testing regimen and this week, again, all tests are negative for COVID-19 (we administered a total of 394 tests this week). We do feel that testing is an important step in stopping/slowing the spread of the coronavirus. Right now, we have one direct care worker in the Health Care Center who tested positive for COVID-19 last Friday and is quarantining at home.
We are so grateful that our residents and staff have had the opportunity for getting the vaccine, either at the campus clinics or at the county and state PODS. Next week, March 23, is our last vaccination clinic at the campus with CVS. This clinic is primarily for residents/staff who received their first dose of the vaccine last month (February 23). If, however, you have been unable to get your first dose of the vaccine yet, you may use this clinic to get your first dose! The staff at the clinic will help you schedule an appointment for your second vaccine, which will be off-campus.
I want to thank all of you for your strength and leadership in adhering to public health guidelines and recommendations. We would not have gotten this far at the campus without your support. Please stay well!
My best,
Michelle Just, President and CEO
This week marks the first anniversary of the declaration that the United States was in a public health emergency with the coronavirus.
After Wednesday, March 10th, Assisted Living/Early Memory Support residents will be able to start walking outside on campus. On Tuesday, March 9, we will be reopening our amenities for Independent Living residents – Backstreet Boutique, Gift Shop and the Salons. During two staff and resident testing sessions, we received all negative results! We will continue testing staff in the near future, as testing is key in mitigating the spread of the virus. We have no new cases of COVID-19 on campus as of March 5th.
Feb. 19th – We have some good news about vaccine rates here at the campus. Nearly all residents in Skilled Nursing and Assisted Living have been vaccinated. (Those in Skilled Nursing received their second dose last month and those in Assisted Living will receive their second dose next week.) Our Independent Living residents have a vaccination rate of 85%. We are still compiling the statistics for the rate of vaccination among staff. I want to thank all who chose to be vaccinated. Fighting this pandemic is a team effort. We are protecting ourselves, our co-workers, residents, families and our community.
Residents will recall filling out an annual satisfaction survey in years past. This annual questionnaire is typically developed by Holleran, an organization that surveys Life Plan Communities like ours throughout the nation. This year, Beatitudes Campus has developed its own Independent Living resident survey tailored to the unique experiences of our community during the pandemic.
We continue to do our mass COVID-19 testing of our staff across campus. On Monday, we conducted 277 tests and none were positive for COVID-19. We have decreased the number of COVID-19 cases to ten – three residents and seven staff.
Four staff had positive test results this week (two Plaza View Assisted Living direct care staff, one Plaza View Assisted Living support staff and one Independent Living support staff). This past week, several staff have recovered and come back. Right now, we have 26 total positive staff. This past week, two Independent Living residents tested positive, several have recovered, and we now have 19 residents with active COVID-19 (none in Skilled Nursing or Advanced Memory Support, 13 residents in Plaza View Assisted Living/Early Memory Support, and six residents in Independent Living).
At our regularly scheduled mass testing on Monday, January 4, 315 staff were tested for COVID-19 and all were negative except four (1% positivity rate). This week, we have had several residents and staff recover from COVID-19, and we are thankful for their return to health. We are reporting 70 cases of COVID-19 among staff and residents.
