Assisted living finds a home in Williams

Facility offers care and the comforts of home

Lisa Kennedy, owner and manager of Ponderosa Assisted Living, said she had no plans to open an assisted living home originally. Formerly employed as a marketing director for a skilled nursing facility, she said she was appalled by the level of care at many of the facilities she would represent. This led her to open her first assisted living home in the Bellemont area in 2007. She opened a second home, located in Williams at 826 Hereford Dr., last December.

"I'm not saying all (skilled nursing facilities) are bad, but the majority of the ones I visited were awful. I truly had no intention of opening an assisted living home, but it became a mission for me," Kennedy said. "We have been blessed with our staff. If it weren't for our staff we wouldn't be where we are. We have literally no turnover with our staff, so there's some consistency there, and these families need that."

The Williams home, called the Ponderosa House, is certified by the Arizona Department of Health Services for eight beds. Residents utilize five of those eight beds. Kennedy explained. Tours of the Ponderosa House are always welcome.

"We offer assisted living for seniors with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS, dementia. We bridge the gap between home and a skilled nursing facility," Kennedy said. "We have dedicated, compassionate, patient caregivers on board. We try to help the seniors maintain their dignity in crucial times when they are not able to live at home."

Caregivers also offer a number of services to those who live in the home.

"We do medication management and transportation to and from doctors appointments," Kennedy said, adding that word of mouth has helped spread news of the facility in recent years.

"I have another facility in Bellemont that has been there since October of 2007. It's full. We just lost our first resident. She passed away at 94. She came to us the first month we opened," Kennedy said.

Kennedy can be reached at (928) 853-4486 for more information, including admissions questions.

Certified Caregiver Carol West said the Ponderosa House offers a number of fun activities for residents.

"We do movie days, we have puzzles, we actually have games that they can play as well: bingo, scrabble, sentence cube games, we play memory games with them, checkers (and) they prefer a lot of puzzles. They do quite a few of those on a regular basis," West said. "We can, on hand, magazines and newspapers for those who can still read and like to read. They eat together, lunch and dinner. Breakfast is a little different, because some like to sleep in a little longer and they get up on their own time. If they want to stay up until one, two o'clock in the morning, they can stay up to one, two o'clock in the morning. If they want to sleep all day, they can sleep all day, but they are also woke to make sure their medications are given probably and that they do get food into their system."

While not registered nurses, West said a nurse does make regular visits to the Williams home.

"We are caregivers. We're not RNs. We're certified for taking care of people in a home like this," West said. "Everything is signed off by the doctors for us to give medications to the residents."

Certified Caregiver Carol West said the Ponderosa House offers a number of fun activities for residents.

"We do movie days, we have puzzles, we actually have games that they can play as well: bingo, scrabble, sentence cube games, we play memory games with them, checkers (and) they prefer a lot of puzzles. They do quite a few of those on a regular basis," West said. "We can, on hand, magazines and newspapers for those who can still read and like to read. They eat together, lunch and dinner. Breakfast is a little different, because some like to sleep in a little longer and they get up on their own time. If they want to stay up until one, two o'clock in the morning, they can stay up to one, two o'clock in the morning. If they want to sleep all day, they can sleep all day, but they are also woke to make sure their medications are given probably and that they do get food into their system."

Ponderosa House also offers a large backyard, which Certified Caregiver Pamela Norman said would be utilized often in the summer months.

"In the summer we hope to get out there and have a barbecue, so they can all enjoy weather," Norman said. "We also take short little walks in the front, up and back. They can't go too far, but they do enjoy going outside and walking."

Norman said the assisted living home made a great addition to the community of Williams.

"What I like about it is it's a home environment. It's a family environment," Norman said. "They call us by our first names."