Minneapolis on the Banks of the Mississippi River

America's Disjointed Care System - There's a Better Way

Our country spends trillions on disjointed, poorly coordinated care, especially for older Americans. The unneccesary bouncebacks that occur between the hospital and a person's home take a lot out of a person and their families. Imagine if physicians and consumers and caregivers could talk with each other and easily share information, instead of wasting time, putting people through unpleasant hospital stays, weakening them further and spending tons of money that could be used in a much better way for the health of Americans. This new video by LeadingAge depicts what that future could look like. This issue is solveable by combining high tech and high touch approaches as seen here.

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Minneapolis on the Banks of the Mississippi River

Nonprofit marks 150 years, but last 10 a doozy

Kathryn Roberts, president & CEO, and Steve Ordahl, senior vice president of business development, celebrated Ecumen’s 150th anniversary at a gala last month.

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Minneapolis on the Banks of the Mississippi River

A Personal Emergency Response System Designed by You

A PERS (Personal Emergency Response System) device empowers older adults with security and independence, honoring their desire to live in their own homes. A group of PERS device companies are looking for your input to design the next generation of this product. If you are 55 or older, we would be grateful if you would take their three-minute survey. Your confidential responses will help these companies gain greater insight on what consumers want in a PERS device.

At Ecumen, our promise to innovate, empower and honor is also an expectation of our partners and the products they bring to our customers and communities. Help us shape the future of this product, and help people who want to remain living in their own homes. We thank you in advance for taking the time to complete the survey.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LinkAge2012


Minneapolis on the Banks of the Mississippi River

Nonprofits Need Your Help

In their search for ways to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” United States Congress is considering capping or eliminating tax deductions for charitable giving. In Ecumen's home state of Minnesota, 5,000 nonprofit organizations receive $3 billion in charitable contributions annually. Reducing or eliminating charitable deductions could create a cascading series of devastating fiscal cliffs across the Minnesota and the rest of the country.

Join Ecumen in supporting charitable giving deductions, empowering nonprofits to continue their important work. Contact your legislators today and let them know you oppose capping or eliminating deductions for charitable giving.

1. Call 888-277-8686 to leave a message letting your member of Congress know that you oppose capping or eliminating charitable tax deductions.

2. Send an email to your member of Congress.  Click on Ecumen's Advocacy Alert for instructions. 

Read the StarTribune article, “Solving 'fiscal cliff' puts charity writeoffs at risk,” and see LeadingAge advocacy feature, “Fiscal Cliff Call-In: Capping Charitable Giving Deduction Is Not The Solution,” for more insight on this issue.


Minneapolis on the Banks of the Mississippi River

Would You Mind Having People With Alzheimer's Living Near You?

At Ecumen, we are honored to work with and care for people who live with the substantial challenges of Alzheimer's and dementia.  Two Twin Cities communities (Woodbury and Minnetonka) now have had residents say they don't want people with Alzheimer's living near them.  How do you feel?  Learn more at the Minneapolis Star Tribune and weigh in.


Honoring Veterans

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in the First World War, then known as "the Great War." Commemorated as Armistice Day beginning the following year, November 11th became a legal federal holiday in the United States in 1938. In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day became Veterans Day, a holiday dedicated to American veterans of all wars. 

This Veterans Day, Minnesotans will gather to show their respect and gratitude to the millions of Americans who have sacrificed on our behalf since the birth of our great nation. At ceremonies and parades across the nation, veterans from every generation will be honored. This includes members of the Greatest Generation, heroes who stormed the beaches at Normandy and the South Pacific to liberate millions from tyranny. It also includes those who defended freedom in Korea and Vietnam, as well as our current generation of heroes who have fought terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world. 

Ecumen has the distinct honor and privilege of serving veterans and their loved ones throughout the many Ecumen communities across Minnesota and other states. As the Senior Vice President of Operations, I have had the privilege of meeting many of these heroes and their family members. It is a humbling experience to listen to the stories and share in the conversations. I also would like to acknowledge and pay a tribute to the many Ecumen employees who served our country and now partner to serve our 12,000+ customers every year.

We often hear "freedom is not free," and I believe this to be true. Don't wait until November 11th to thank a veteran or their family for their service and sacrifices. Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to our veterans and every day should be viewed as Veterans Day across our great nation. 

As we innovate, empower and honor in our work at Ecumen, we take this moment to express our gratitude and honor the nearly 50 service men and women who work at Ecumen communities, and all of the veterans in the Ecumen family.

Share Your Veteran Story or Tribute

This Veterans Day, Ecumen invites you to honor a veteran with your story or tribute. Join us in saluting The Greatest Generation - and all generations - who have helped make America the greatest country in the world! Go to https://www.ecumen.org/honor/.


There's No Place Like Home -- Ecumen Celebrates 150 Years

There's No Place Like Home

Ecumen's 150th Gala celebration, in pictures.  See full story, below. 

Ecumen's "150 Years" graphics embedded in a  beautiful ice sculpture, which chilled the Emerald Slippers as they coursed through the ice block and into waiting goblets. 

Ecumen Board of Trustees members Debbie Cervenka (Chair of Philanthropy Committee) and Loanne Thrane (with husband Ralph) enjoying the gala festivities. 

Gala organizer and Ecumen's Director of Philanthropy Stacey Minnick (three cheers, Stacey!) and Dana Wollschlager, Ecumen's Director of Real Estate Development.  Having a good time. 

The Great Hall,  minutes before the celebration. 

Guests mingled as they perused the unique, one-of-a-kind creations by leading Minnesota artists featured in the "Imagine Home" silent auction, enjoyed hors d'oeuvres by CRAVE, sampled an "Emerald Slipper," the event's signature cocktail, and experienced a soulful performance by VocalEssence, led by visionary director and founder Philip Brunelle. Proceeds from the gala will help support Ecumen's Awakenings initiative, a groundbreaking new approach to Alzheimer’s care focused upon moving people away from unnecessary use of antipsychotic medications and awakening them to living as fully as possible.

Following are Kathryn's remarks from the event. 

Good evening. It is so wonderful to see each of you. Thank you so very much for sharing this milestone with us and for your generous support of our mission to create home for older adults wherever they choose to live.

As you might have read in the Star Tribune this week, our mission is backed by 150 years of care. It all began when Lutheran missionaries sheltered children orphaned in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. As a new century dawned, we moved into senior services in 1904. We were known in the 20th Century as the Board of Christian Service and then the Board of Social Ministry.

Entering the 21st Century, we embarked on a new path, a path of transforming senior services and creating a new future and new possibilities in aging. That path was marked by a new name – Ecumen. Ecumen, like the phrase Ecumenical, is derived from the Greek word for home. Our name underscores our mission to create home and that our front doors are open wide for new collaborations, new possibilities and new solutions that make lives better.

Ecumen’s work is changing aging. It has to. We’re all growing older. And we’re doing it at an unprecedented rate. In just 7 years, Minnesota will have more seniors than children – a first.

I see incredible opportunity for innovation in aging. In the last decade, our work has included the largest expansion of housing in our history; it’s led to growing at-home services that will continue to evolve; it’s led to work beyond the borders of Minnesota, and it’s leading to many new people supporting and helping us transform the aging experience. I’d like to share how your generous support this evening is Changing Aging:

Until the 1970s, the phrase Alzheimer’s was largely isolated to medical journals. Today more than 100,000 Minnesotans have Alzheimer’s. Without a cure, nearly half of people who reach age 80 will have Alzheimer’s or other form of dementia.

The culture of Alzheimer’s care in America has often resulted in the inappropriate long-term use of antipsychotic drugs. These medications are used to control verbal or physical outbursts that can occur with Alzheimer’s. Inappropriate long-term use of these drugs can lead to a person living life in a stupor, devoid of human emotion. In a sense, they’re put asleep.

Our work of changing aging means seeing things differently. Where some see Alzheimer’s, we see beautiful human beings. Several years ago we began working in partnership with a leading physician to see if we could change this culture of Alzheimer’s care. We started emphasizing non-pharmaceutical approaches, such as exercise, storytelling, aroma therapy, and teaching family members how to identify triggers to behavioral changes. This approach focuses on a person’s abilities and possibilities, not simply disabilities.

We’ve named this initiative “Awakenings,” because through this whole-person approach we have seen people awaken from a drug-induced stupor. We’ve dramatically reduced the use of anti-psychotic medications at Ecumen. And, most importantly, we’ve made lives better.

You can see that improvement in Joan in Two Harbors who now participates in balloon volleyball while smiling and laughing.

You can see it in Helen in Mankato. Helen’s care team learned from her family that she had had a favorite cat named Whitey. Upon leaving for World War II, her husband had given it to her to keep her company. Learning this, an Ecumen care professional shared a toy white cat with Helen as a gift and asked to learn more about Whitey. Helen adored that cat. Her outbursts subsided. By learning about Helen, and finding a source of her joy, we helped her find peace.

Our Awakenings pilot received a $3.8 million grant from the State of Minnesota’s Department of Human Services to measure the success of this work and lessons that can be applied elsewhere. Changing Aging means building on this work, providing training to others and transforming the culture of Alzheimer’s care. I’d like to applaud the people at Ecumen who have taken Awakenings from an idea to a reality and applaud each of you who have helped us raise $100,000 this evening for Awakenings.

In conclusion, I say thank you. Thank you so very much for celebrating with us and for honoring our mission to create home for older adults wherever they choose to live and our commitment to creating the future of aging for you, me and those we love. We’re all aging. And, with your support, the best is yet to come. Thank you.


In Honor and Memory at Ecumen North Branch

Ecumen last week honored two young women: one whose life was abruptly taken away and another who is continuing her legacy of making a difference at the senior living facility in North Branch.

Alissa Newham received the first Kristina Pinna Award in front of residents, fellow staffers and student volunteers on Friday afternoon. Presenting the honor was new Ecumen Administrator Nathan Johnson.

“I feel pretty proud,” said Newham, a dietitian who just completed her first year at the senior living community. “I feel very honored.”

PHOTO:  Alissa Newham, who works at the Ecumen senior living facility in North Branch, is the first recipient of the Kristina Pinna Award. Pinna, at just 20 years old, died in a tragic car crash about a year ago, but her legacy lives on through the annual award named in her honor. Presenting the award last week was new Ecumen Administrator Nathan Johnson. Photo by Jon Tatting

With perfect attendance on the job, Newham helps others when she is ahead in serving food. She cleans and does extra cleaning jobs around the kitchen. She helps dish up food when the cooks are busy, said Johnson, reading from a co-worker’s nomination letter.

Alissa is a team player and encourages co-workers to do well in their jobs. She enjoys what she is doing and helps others feel they belong here. It’s the little things, from sharing a joke to commenting on how others look, that also show how Alissa goes above and beyond her normal job duties, he continued.

That co-worker was Elizabeth Fisk, who emphasized how Newham encouraged her, helped her in her own job duties when the pressure was on, such as serving breakfast on time for the residents.

“She makes the most out of the people she works with,” Fisk continued. “I enjoy her companionship, smile, laughter and the ‘there you go’ or ‘you did it’ comments. She trained me in…when I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I love working with her, and that is why I am nominating her for the Kristina Pinna Award.”

The award is named after Kristina Ann Pinna, from North Branch, who was just 20 years old when she was killed in a crash involving three other vehicles during morning rush hour Sept. 1, 2011, in a construction zone on Interstate 35E at Lino Lakes. Surviving the collision was her mother, Debra A. Hildebrand, who was not able to attend last week’s ceremony at Ecumen.

Of those who were on hand was Matt Lattimore, a social studies teacher at North Branch Area High School, along with students volunteering under the Student Community Involvement Program.

Lattimore remembers Pinna as a caring person and terrific student. And he can see why her legacy will live on for years to come through an award that recognizes her contributions at Ecumen North Branch.

“She was a wonderful person, a great student,” he said. “She was quiet, but she shined around people.”


Please Join Us in Sharing Your Veteran Tribute

Veterans Day 2012 is November 11th.  In honor of America's veterans, we'd love your tributes or stories of a veteran you admire. Please share your stories and tributes here.  Ecumen is proud to serve the Greatest Generation and help shape the future of aging for future generations.  Please join us in sharing your tribute to any veteran of any generation.  Below is a tribute from Ecumen blogger and veteran Jim Klobuchar.  It honors Vietnam veteran Denny Wellmann, a native of Hanska, Minnesota:

The Day Corporal Denny Wellmann Came Home

He grew up on a farm near the small Minnesota community of Hanska. He was a laughing, fun-craving kid who lit the affections of the townspeople whether he was trying to be a farmer or a salesman at the Green Clothiers in nearby New Ulm .He lived in a small but active world of work, bowling parties, farm chores, ball games and fun with his pals.

He was called Denny by all who knew him, in school, on the farm and-- not much later-- in the jungles of Viet Nam. Along with hundreds of others who knew him, I will remember Denny Wellmann, a Marine corporal, on Veterans Day.

In the midst of the tumult of an approaching election and mounting unease over the direction of a divided America, the country on Veterans’ Day will try to regain its unity by remembering the sacrifice of those who fought to preserve it.

For Denny and the 58,000 others who died with him in Viet Nam and the 36,000 others in Korea, it has taken awhile.

The euphoria that followed victory in World War II was stirred by the nation’s gratitude to those who fought in it. American prosperity followed and America became the global leader. It also went to war again, in Korea and Viet Nam. Neither of those wars stoked the patriotic fervor of the American public. Thousands of young people fled the country to escape the draft. As the years stretched out Korea and Viet Nam were viewed by a large part of the public as needless and political. Thousands of those who fought there were ignored or actually taunted and mistreated when they returned.

Today, whatever the American public’s divided views on the necessity of the recent or current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it has embraced and honored both the professional and citizen soldiers, men and women, who have fought in it.

Denny’s return to America was quiet and solemn. But in all of the years that I have spent in journalism, it is a day impossible for me to forget, more than 45 years later.

He had fought in many of the big engagements of the war in Viet Nam, once wounded by shrapnel. He had confided to a friend in Hanska that “ I just hope we are fighting for something worthwhile.” But his letters home rarely bore a trace of self-sympathy. He was a good Marine, recognized by his superiors when they promoted him to corporal.

Not long after, two Marine officers appeared at the home of his sister with the news that her brother, Denny, had been killed by an explosive device at Quang Tri. To spare his ailing father the initial shock, he had asked the Marines to inform his sister first in the event of his death.

On a radiant September morning in 1966, the day of his funeral, I drove to the little Scandinavian town where he grew up. I then wrote for  the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Hours before the service I visited with his father, Elmer Wellmann, who had been out on the farm, in his work clothes, assisting his other sons and a son-in-law with chores. “The war is so far away,” he said. “It’s hard to understand. But I think it’s right that we are there. I had four other boys; all were in the service. I would hate to think Denny died in a useless war. And I don’t.”

They held the memorial service in a lovely white church on a hilltop. Dirt farmers with big, reddened hands, and their families, bowed their heads and wept. Mourners filled the tiny church and the adjacent service rooms. When there were no seats left, the late-comers gathered in the churchyard and sang hymns. The minister’s eulogy was thoughtful. Instead attempting to understand the big questions of why wars, why hatred and violence and hunger for power, he asked the mourners instead to focus on the brief life of Denny Wellman. “We recall the young man with the winning smile, the disarming personality and his potential, all beginning to become clear.”

The manager of the store in New Ulm, where Dennis had worked , remembered the young man’s last words before leaving for Viet Nam: “I just hope I don’t change too much by the time I come home.”

He came home as Denny Wellman , a Minnesota farm boy who in the ultimate test of his life fought without flinching , an American soldier and a credit to the best there is in this country. When the church service ended a Marine sergeant took the folded flag and tenderly placed it in the hands of Denny’s mother. He saluted, for all of us.