It's an early Christmas for residents of the Yorkton Nursing Home and clients of the Day Wellness program.
The gift is a bus, which will be used to transport residents and clients throughout the city and beyond. The $97,000 bus was purchased by the Health Foundation. The bus comes after the nursing home's old bus reached then end of its service life a year ago, leaving residents without a vehicle to get around in.
Suzanne Beck, Director of Therapeutic Recreation and Day Wellness, says that the bus means life is full of possibilities now, and the purchase of the bus opens up the community for residents and clients.
"When we didn't have the bus, the residents were housebound, they had very little access to the community... For us, it's about getting residents back in the community and back enjoying the things they like to do."
Accessibility for those with disabilities was the priority for the bus, and the wheelchair positions are all window seats. Beck also says that one of the top priorities was a heater to keep residents warm as people in wheelchairs are loaded into the vehicle.
One of the people who will be using the bus in the near future is Leslie J. McCandless, who is a client in the Day Wellness program. She describes the new bus is "just awesome," because it means that clients in the program can now go to more outings, and they can all go together in the same vehicle.
"The fact that it's brand new, and it's ours, is just amazing," McCandless adds.
Mobility is a challenge for a lot of her fellow Day Wellness Clients, McCandless says, and it makes it difficult for them to get out in the community and enjoy even simple things like looking at gardens in the spring. The bus means mobility for not only herself, but all of the other clients in the program, as well as residents in the nursing home.
The bus was purchased with contributions from the Yorkton Lions, Yorkton Elks Lodge, Kinsmen Telemiracle and Loucks Pharmacy.
"I want to say thanks to everyone who helped us raise this money, I'm so pleased that it happened so quickly," McCandless says.
