Rebuilding for Rehab

The current space, in use for more than 40 years, is inadequate and inefficient, limiting the number of people who can train and receive therapy, as well as the type of therapy that can be given. Plans for the center’s renovation include increasing the size by 3,500 square feet and providing state-of-the-art equipment that will meet the needs of older adults, today and into the future.

According to Daniel Ruth, president and CEO of Jewish Senior Living Group, rehabilitation therapy is a major element of the Jewish Home’s core program, serving as it does both long-term care residents and short-term care patients. It is also an important part of the Home’s vision for the future and its financial viability.

“We’re tremendously grateful to the Koret Foundation for its extraordinary leadership gift and to the other generous philanthropic supporters who helped us meet this challenge grant,” Daniel says. “This funding will allow the Jewish Home to renovate the rehabilitation center to improve space and efficiency, and enable us to offer services and programs that aren’t available in other Bay Area rehabilitation facilities.”

“Helping the Home help the people it serves more effectively and impactfully is what Koret is committed to,” says Adam Hirschfelder, Koret’s senior program officer.

The Koret Foundation’s gift, to be paid over five years, was matched by additional generous grants, including $400,000 from the Jewish Community Endowment Fund; $100,000 from Mount Zion Health Fund; and $557,803 from the Burton H. Landensohn Trust.

Rehabilitation therapy increases seniors’ ability to engage in activities of daily living. As experts in geriatric rehabilitative care, the Jewish Home’s physical, occupational, and speech therapists help patients achieve their maximum level of functional independence by decreasing pain, improving balance, and promoting strength, flexibility, gait and safety awareness. They advance wheelchair mobility and train caregivers. The Home’s therapists also enhance patients’ ability to communicate, and ensure safe eating patterns for those with swallowing deficits.

“Based upon a wide body of research, we know that the quicker we can get an older person back to their optimum physical condition, the better the outcomes will be across the board for many measures of life satisfaction and activity,” says Koret’s Hirschfelder.

Koret’s challenge grant is the Foundation’s latest contribution to an enduring partnership with the Home dating back to 1980, shortly after the Foundation was established by Joseph Koret.

Says Susan Koret, lifetime board chair of the Koret Foundation: “My late husband, Joseph Koret, cared deeply about the Jewish Home. It practices Jewish values every day by caring for our elders, and brings Jewish learning and values to its residents. I know my husband would be very proud of the close relationship the Koret Foundation maintains with the Home.”

“A commitment to supporting the essential Jewish institutions that strengthen our community has been at the core of the Koret Foundation ever since its founding,” Hirschfelder says. “By providing quality care to our older members, the Jewish Home exemplifies what our local Jewish community is about.”