AWARD-WINNING NEWSPAPER
Beautiful Vets thrive in Brevard Page 19
September 2016
Volume 20 Number 4
OF FLORIDA
myseniorlife.com
Proposed day center would provide joint care for seniors, children under one roof
Time Machine visits 1945 Page 10
SENIOR LIFE Linda Wiggins
Judy Edwards, with therapy dog Buddy, hopes to bring generations like Ryan Gronich and Carol Ham together for the day for mutual benefit, with access to chosen companion animals, against a backdrop of soothing nature. BY MIKE GAFFEY Judy Edwards has a dream of seeing young and old mingling in Brevard County’s first intergenerational day care center for children and seniors. But first she needs $2.5 million to see her dream become reality. Edwards is proposing that the 10,000-square-foot Space Coast Intergen Center be built on 3.5 acres on U.S. 1 in Rockledge, just south of the Goodwill store. On Sept. 1, Edwards, the center’s executive director, is scheduled to ask the Brevard Office of County Commission Zoning Board for a needed rezoning so the center can be
built to its original size. The center would provide day care on weekdays for up to 40 older residents not suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, and a Montessori-style preschool program for about 40 children ages 3 to 6, said Edwards, who along with her Viera dentist husband, Dr. Chris Edwards, co-own the Rockledge property. The couple established Space Coast Intergen Center Inc. as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization and named a board of directors to help accomplish their goal. “What we need are alternatives and in Brevard County we do not have this alternative,” Edwards said. Edwards was inspired to move
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forward with the center after she and her therapy dog, Buddy, visited an elderly woman in an assisted living facility. “l saw how many of the patients were bored out of their minds,” Edwards said. Edwards later learned from radio and TV reports about intergenerational centers in Denmark and Seattle, and decided that a similar center is needed in Brevard, where a quarter of the population is older than 65. The proposed center within a wooded area would have separate,
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INTERGENERATIONAL See page 5
Same day appointments available for new patients as well as established patients. Give us a call and we can show you how easy and pleasant a visit to the doctor’s office can be.
EXPO 2016
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