Menorah Park Aims to Match Grant Award for Expansion Project

By Reinhardt, Eric

DeWITT – Nearly a century after it was founded, Menorah Park Senior Living Community, at 4101 E. Genesee St. in DeWitt, is raising funding for an expansion and renovation project providing additional services on its senior living campus.

The Foundation at Menorah Park, the fundraising arm of the facility formerly known as the Jewish Home of Central New York, has received a $1 million challenge grant from the Sam Pomeranz Trust and Abraham Shankman Family Charitable Trust.

The funding is called a challenge grant because the foundation is required to raise a $1 million match in order to receive the money.

The grant will be directed toward an Enhanced Special Care Unit/ Palliative Care, an upcoming Center for Outpatient Rehabilitation and Innovative Therapies, renovations at the Ahavath Achim Apartments, and landscape work.

Menorah Park has been a provider of long-term care since the Jewish community founded the organization in 1912, says CEO Mary Ellen Bloodgood. But she believes the baby boomers using its services in the next five to 10 years will be looking at the organization from a different perspective.

“They’re going to be healthier. They’re going to be more active, and we want to make sure that some of the programs that we’re doing, like the wellness programs and the outpatient therapy really provide that level of care,” says Bloodgood.

The Enhanced Special Care Unit/Palliative Care is intended to enhance the quality of life for patients with serious illness or nearing the end of life. Renovations with costs totaling $750,000 are transforming the east wing of the 1950s building, and the new facility is expected to open this fall.

The Center for Outpatient Rehabilitation and Innovative Therapies will include aerobic exercise and weight-training programs with equipment designed for the elder population.

“We want to be able to provide some of the alternative and holistic types of therapies, which include tai chi, yoga, some herbal supplements,” says Bloodgood, noting those treatments aren’t what people would expect from a long-term care facility.

Innovative therapies include exercises for motor control and coordination, strength and range of motion, as well as newer treatment approaches, such as constraint-induced therapy, which forces a stroke patient to use the affected side of the body by restraining the unaffected side.

In addition, robotic therapy is designed to help stroke victims to regain strength and normal use of their hands.

Equipment for the 5,000-square-foot Center for Outpatient Rehabilitation and Innovative Therapies, which should open by 2010, will cost at least $500,000. Bloodgood hopes for approval from the New York State Department of Health within 12 months. Zausmer, Frisch, Scruton & Aggarwal of Syracuse is designing and constructing the center, says Bloodgood.

The center will be housed in the Commons at Menorah Park, a senior wellness and education center. The cost for the 20,000- square-foot Commons is an estimated $3 million. Plans call for the clubhouse-style facility to include a computer room, health promotion services, a cafe, and cultural events

Putting on a fresh face

Plans also call for $75,000 in renovation work at the Ahavath Achim Apartments, a 5,000-square-foot facility that serves 11 residents who pay a monthly rent between $500 and $600. Work on the facade is already under way, says Bloodgood.

“With a 1935 building, we’re constantly running into retrofitting and making something that was old look newer, so the renovations will be more from an aesthetic perspective,” she says.

The improvements will also include a new entry porch and an upgraded emergency lighting and fire alarm system.

Besides the renovation work, landscaping work is also planned, including gardening, an enclosed greenhouse, and memory gardens to help seniors with Alzheimer’s and related dementias, along with walking trails and pathways.

The Foundation at Menorah Park received the $1 million challenge grant at the end of 2007, says Jill Allen, director of development.

“We’ve been working on trying to go public with it and raising the matching million,” she says, noting approximately $200,000 has already been raised.

Allen says anyone in the community can make a pledge to the major gifts campaign, which has a goal of raising $6 million.

Even though the foundation is required to raise matching funds to receive the challenge grant, the Pomeranz and Shankman trusts have already donated $200,000 of the $1 million total for work on the Enhanced Special Care Unit/Palliative Care project, with the expectation the foundation will raise the matching funds.

“If they don’t raise it, they better give it back,” says attorney Sheldon Kall, a partner in Kall and Reilly, LLP, who along with his wife, Matelee, is a trustee of the Pomeranz and Shankman trusts.

He says both Samuel Pomeranz and Abraham Shankman were residents of Menorah Park. Pomeranz owned and operated Robert’s Shoe Store on East Genesee Street and was a successful real estate and equities investor. Shankman served as an accountant and tax adviser to Pomeranz.

Never too late to donate

Pomeranz died in 2001, and Kall says Pomeranz didn’t think he had donated enough money to charity during his lifetime, so he created the trust. He had appointed Shankman and Kall as co-trustees to oversee the assets. Kall says Shankman had similar feelings about his charitable giving, and he appointed the Kalls as co-trustees of the Abraham Shankman Family Charitable Trust prior to his death in January 2006.

Kall points out that Shankman had preferred his money be donated to Jewish charities, but non-Jewish charities could also benefit, if the trustees felt it was the proper course of action.

“My wife and I determined that we wanted to give the assets away so they can be used throughout the entire community, not just the Jewish community,” Kall says.

The 36-acre campus of Menorah Park encompasses a total of 150,000 square feet and serves 300 residents per day.

Rothschild Adult Day Services is a medical day-care program serving the health-care needs of 35 residents from an 1,800-square- foot facility.

The Oaks at Menorah Park retirement community serves 50 residents in its 40,000-square-foot facility on campus. The 35,000-square- foot Sam Pomeranz Assisted Living Residence serves 53 residents with physical and memory impairments.

In addition, four people live in the 2,500-square-foot Menorah Park Group Residence, and the Menorah Park Home Care Agency serves 45 residents.

Menorah Park generated $25 million in revenue in 2007, and Bloodgood projects a similar figure for .2008. Menorah Park employs more than 300 people.

Norman Poltenson, the publisher of The Central New York Business Journal, is currently a member of the Menorah Park board of directors. Poltenson is also a past president of The Foundation at Menorah Park.

Copyright Central New York Business Journal Sep 12, 2008

(c) 2008 Business Journal – Central New York, The. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.