March 28, 2024

Newton Village addition will provide residents full continuum of care

Newton Village is a residential facility, offering independent living, assisted living and memory care, but the staff at Newton Village wants to offer more service for their residents — a full continuum of care. This spring, the facility will open up a brand new nursing home on the north side of the complex to round out their services.

The new $3.3 million nursing home facility called the “Newton Village Health Care Center” will consist of 20 private skilled rooms, 2 semi-private skilled rooms, physical therapy, two dining rooms and a chapel.

The facility had its ground breaking on April 3, 2013, starting with basement work and cement work over the summer. The building was inclosed this winter, and is scheduled to open this spring, the first week of May.

Pope Architect is the architect firm out of Minneapolis, Minn. designed the addition, and Erickson Balmer Construction out of Urbandale are doing the building.

“They do fantastic work,” Newton Village Executive Director and Administrator Brenda Colvin said of the hired builders. “Everything looks great, and they’ve been wonderful.”

The Newton Village Fundraising Committee raised more than $335,000 to help pay for the new addition.

“It shows the City of Newton and the people of Newton are excited about the project and wanted to be apart of that too,” Colvin said.

Colvin credits previous executive directory Gary Schebeck for his work in getting the State Health Facilities Council of the Iowa Department of Public Health to approve Newton Village’s application for a Certificate of Need, a state finding required to be met before the construction of a new nursing home.

“There’s a need as our population ages. There’s a need for more nursing homes in Jasper County.”

At Newton Village, a facility owned by a Christian Organization from Minnesota, Elim Care, it’s important to the staff, residents and their families that the quality of life of individulas who live there is high.

Providing a higher quality of life can now mean assurance that residents can stay at Newton Village for nursing care or end of life services.

“Sometimes in assisted living, people end up having to go somewhere else because they need more care then we can provide, and it’s heartbreaking,” Colvin explained. “All of our people that are here now are hopeful that they can just stay where they are until the time comes they would need to go somewhere else. They’re excited.”

Judy Snook has lived at Newton Village for ten years and loves her stay there. She too is excited for the new facility.

Judy’s able to live on the independent side and keeps busy both outside Newton Village and inside.

Outside the facility, she’s active in Golden K Kiwanis and the First United Methodist Church choir. At Newton Village, she participates in an exercise class three days a week, enjoys games like dominos and bingo in the game room, and attends the numerous programs they offer their residents.

As Judy has seen friends leave their homes at Newton Village because they need more care, she is now glad that friends won’t have to move any longer because of the addition, and she’s confident in the care that will be provided.

“I think it’s great that we’re getting the skilled beds, and it will be nice for the people that live here who need it,” Snook said. “The people who live in the assisted side get such good care, I can’t help but know people on the nursing side will too.”

Newton Village celebrated its 10th anniversary last fall, and shortly thereafter previous director, Shebeck retired.

“It was an honor to take over for him,” Colvin said, who started at Newton Village in November.

“The people of Newton have been awesome. It’s been fun both at Newton Village and events I’ve been to in the community,” Colvin said.

“I very much love the eldery of our world, and I love our employees just as much. I just love people. It’s fun to be in an industry where I can work closely with people.”

Larry Klosterboer’s parents, Vernon and Esther Klosterboer, are from Grundy Center, and last summer, the time had come for them to be nearer to family and make the inevitable decision to leave their long-time family home.

Moving to a new town is never easy, especially as an elder, but it didn’t take long for the Vernon and Esther to enjoy their new home.

“They just love it. They’re involved in many activities, they play games, and when they come to visit, they’ll leave early just to make it back in time for lunch,” Larry said.

The transition for Vernon and Esther has been easy, thanks to Newton Village. It’s also been unexpectedly simple for Larry and his wife Paula.

“As a person having a parent there, I don’t have to worry about everything. The care is there, they have fun and they’re meeting new people,” Klosterboer said. “If something bad happened, somebody is there. It’s about the peace of mind.”

“They don’t need any care right now, but eventually if something happened, they have assisted living, and if they need it after that, they’ll now have nursing,” Klosterboer said.

Newton Village, located at 110 N. Fifth Ave. W. will be hiring more nursing care staff in the near future to accomodate the Newton Village Health Care Center.