Right now at this very moment someone, somewhere, is in the process of choosing an ABHOW senior living community. It’s one of the biggest decisions of their lives, and for reasons that fill me with enormous pride and a healthy sense of responsibility, they’ve chosen to make their home with us.
Why ABHOW? Do residents choose us because we have great campuses, innovative programs and amenities and delicious, high quality dining? These factors do draw people to ABHOW, but they alone do not motivate our residents to become part of a community.
People choose us because they want exceptional experiences. They want a life of their own making, one that’s based on passion and possibility. They choose ABHOW because our communities are an open door to an exceptional life. There’s something different about ABHOW, residents say. Something they just couldn’t find anywhere else.
•For Johnnie Sowell, exceptional experiences start with a full plate and good friends gathered around the table. Sowell, a 12-year resident at The Terraces at San Joaquin Gardens in Fresno, Calif., says she and her neighbors love the community’s new Bistro Terrazzo and are excited about a planned expansion of the main dining room. But Sowell sees those and other dining amenities at the community as enhancements to what’s really exceptional – the spirit of fellowship. “Some of the best times in our lives are spent in that dining room, just being together and having fun," says Sowell. "You wouldn’t believe the fun we have.”
•For Marie Myers, an exceptional lifestyle is worth protecting. Myers loved Rosewood from the first day she moved in to the community in Bakersfield, Calif., in 2003. She loved it so much that she couldn’t take the thought that Rosewood, which lacked a swimming pool, might lose prospective residents to a nearby community with a pool. So Myers made it her mission to do something about it and seven years, her own $20,000 and several fundraisers later, Rosewood now has a beautiful new pool. And how is Myers enjoying it? From a distance. You see, Marie Myers was so afraid of the water as a child that she never learned to swim. “My enjoyment comes from watching my neighbors enjoy the pool,” says Myers.
•For Mickey Angelo, exceptional is a life she hoped for but never expected to have, and certainly not twice. Angelo was enjoying her “little piece of heaven” at Pacific Meadows, ABHOW’s affordable housing community in scenic Carmel, Calif., when her grandson called and said he needed her to move in and care for his young children. She didn’t hesitate but was sad to leave Pacific Meadows, where she enjoyed sweeping views of the Pacific and had become a community ambassador of sorts. But family circumstances soon changed and Angelo found herself on the waiting list for Pacific Meadows, which in her absence had undergone a $7 million eco-friendly renovation. Now safely back in her home, today Angelo pays no utility bills thanks to the installation of high-tech solar panels. “It feels like I struck the jackpot twice,” says Angelo. “How lucky is that?”
It’s incredibly inspiring to hear stories like these of lives well-lived, and to know that for our residents ABHOW is the home they would choose all over again.
