The scope of coverage is vast to say the least. Maybe even mind-boggling. To the Colorado and Oklahoma borders, ElderCare is there to serve its clients.
ElderCare is a non-profit organization based out of Great Bend, but the area it takes care of is staggering. The organization is actually split into two sides. Both require a great deal of work. Executive Director Brandi Gruber said the two areas are unique to each other.
“We have the home health care side of things, where we help out the elderly in their homes,” Gruber said. “Then we have the friendship meals. That encompasses a much larger area. Pretty much most of southwest Kansas.”
On the home health care side of things, ElderCare handles mostly non-medical things. These include day-to-day light housekeeping, personal care and shopping for the clients.
These services are mainly in Barton County but also encompass Stafford and Pratt Counties as well.
“Each home is unique,” Gruber said. “Each client is different.”
But despite the non-medical nature of ElderCare, it is on this side of things that the non-profit is currently seeking a Registered Nurse to take the lead.
“They are basically our home services supervisor,” Gruber said of the RN it is currently seeking. “They plan care for each of the homes, making sure the staff has the training to provide the services they need. “It is an important part of our licensing process. We need to have that RN in place to oversee what we are doing.”
The full-time position comes with some traveling to the three counties, but mostly they will work out of the office in town.
“We are in the process of trying to grow our home services and have to have that position filled to do that.”
For the home health side of things, ElderCare takes medicaid, long term care insurance, private insurance and works with the Southwest Area on Aging as well as Veterans Affairs to help cover the expenses for those it serves.
As busy as the home health care side of things might be, the friendship meal side is even bigger. It covers over 28 counties and has 35 meal sites. That number, 28 counties, is more than 1/4 of the total number of counties in the state of Kansas.
“We have kitchens, satellite sites and provide catered meals,” Gruber said.
Here in Great Bend, they provide the meals for the Senior Center. Meals on Wheels and the Hoisington Senior Center all get their meals covered by ElderCare.
“They all get their meals from our kitchens,” Gruber said. “Hoisington drives here every day to pick up their meals.”
They also work with the Ellinwood Hospital to pay for meals for the Ellinwood Senior Center.
ElderCare has 14 Central Kitchens across southwestern Kansas. It dips down to the farthest southwest county in Kansas with a kitchen in Elkhart. Syracuse, another border county by Colorado has a kitchen as does Liberal, Ulysses, Sublette and Scott City. Along the Oklahoma border, Ashland and Medicine Lodge have kitchens. Dodge City, Greensburg and Ness City have them as well. A little closer to home, Larned has a central kitchen.
In addition, 12 more towns have satellite kitchens that get meals from the central kitchen. There are also a handful of towns that provide a catering service. Towns as small as St. John and Stafford and as large as Garden City are among those that cater.
“A majority of our sites do delivery,” Gruber said. “Most of our sites you can dine-in, carry out and have it delivered. Larned delivers somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 percent of its meals.”
During a month’s time, ElderCare provides 26,000 meals for its customers. The meals are for anyone over 60 regardless of income. A $3.50 donation is suggested, but not required.
“A mix of paid positions for managers, cooks and drivers along with several volunteer positions make it possible,” Gruber said. “This would not be possible without all the volunteers we get to help us out.”
