Veiner Centre's Community Impact

During the first full week of June, Albertans can show appreciation for Alberta’s seniors and all that they contribute to Alberta. Today on Bring Back The Porch Brian explores the vital services provided by the Veiner Centre.The centre has many ways to help seniors in our community including Meals on Wheels, social programs, and volunteer opportunities. Discover how these initiatives support aging
populations through community engagement, health, and social services.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:10 History and Background of the Veiner Centre
02:44 Services and Activities at the Veiner Centre
04:04 Retirement Planning and Educational Resources
05:15 The Veiner Viper and Community Engagement
06:27 Vintage Transportation and Drive Happiness Program
07:20 Challenges Facing Meals on Wheels Program
08:30 The Social and Social Support Role of Meals on Wheels
09:08 Partnerships with Strathcona Centre and Programs Offered
10:27 Social Prescribing and Community Support Services
11:00 Downsizing Support and Resources
11:46 Elder Abuse Prevention and Outreach
12:50 Scam Awareness and Community Education
13:29 Serving Rural Communities and Membership Details
14:07 Membership and Donation Options
15:04 Volunteer Opportunities and Community Involvement
15:39 The Veiner Centre Bistro and Community Events
16:23 Closing Remarks and Community Appreciation
As our population ages, the need for comprehensive support systems for seniors has never been more crucial. Many older adults face challenges that can lead to isolation and difficulty accessing essential services. Brian and his guest Larry Mathieson, delve into five key programs designed to uplift and assist seniors, ensuring they can enjoy their golden years with dignity and
care. Whether you’re looking to volunteer, donate, or simply learn how these programs function, this guide will provide you with the essential insights.

About Unison and the Veiner Centre
Unison is a community organization focusing on enhancing the quality of life for older adults. The Veiner Centre, part of Unison, serves as a hub for various activities and services tailored to individuals aged 50 and above. From recreational activities to educational workshops, the Veiner Centre is committed to promoting engagement among seniors while addressing their specific needs.

Discover 5 impactful programs that support seniors in your community. Learn how initiatives like Meals on Wheels and social prescribing can make a difference.

1. Meals on Wheels: Nourishing Body and Soul
Meals on Wheels is more than just a food delivery service; it serves as a vital lifeline for many seniors. Volunteers deliver nutritious meals directly to those who may struggle to prepare food for themselves. This program not only ensures that seniors receive essential nutrition but also fosters social connections, as volunteers often become familiar faces and companions to their clients.

2. Social Prescribing: A Holistic Approach to Health
Unison’s social prescribing initiative connects seniors with various community resources that promote well-being beyond traditional medical care. This program encourages older adults to engage in activities and services that can enhance their quality of life, such as counselling, fitness classes, and community events.

3. Veiner Vintage Transport: Bridging Transportation Gaps
The Veiner Vintage program is an adaptation of the Drive Happiness initiative, aimed at providing transportation for seniors who may have difficulty getting to essential appointments. This volunteer-driven service ensures that older adults can attend medical appointments and
social gatherings, reducing isolation and promoting independence.

4. Educational Workshops: Empowering Through Knowledge
Unison offers a variety of educational workshops focused on topics like estate planning, financial literacy, and health management. These workshops aim to equip seniors with the knowledge they need to navigate their lives more effectively. 

5. Community Engagement: Building Connections
Programs like the Veiner Centre encourage community engagement through clubs, social events, and recreational activities. From quilting to bridge clubs, these activities help seniors forge connections, combat loneliness, and maintain their mental and emotional health.

Conclusion
Supporting seniors in our communities is more important than ever. Programs like Meals on Wheels, social prescribing, and educational workshops provide vital services that enrich the lives of older adults.
Resources
Unison Website - https://unison.com
Veiner Centre Website - https://veinercentre.wildapricot.org/
Meals on Wheels - -https://unisonalberta.com/services/medicine-hat/meals-on-wheels/
Elder Abuse Information - https://www.albertaelderabuse.ca/
Scam Awareness Resources - https://mhps.ca/posts/post/1812

Guest links
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-mathieson-29b55024/
Website - https://unison.com

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Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Brian again, and I'd like to ask you to do a favor. We can't do this work without people like you. So if you can, please like, share, subscribe, tell your friends about Bring Back the Porch. we think of it as it starts with food. And so it is a nutrition program in a way. And there's a lot of there's actually a lot of research behind the Meals on Wheels program. And the benefit it creates in some in a health system, for example, savings. But but the big thing for us is those volunteers become a social lifeline to to the users of that program. So it's a very important program for that for that reason alone. This episode of Bring Back the Porch. Brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. I'm pleased to welcome to the porch today, Larry Mathieson, the CEO of Unison. Welcome, Larry. Well, thank you for having me. Now, we used to see you on a regular basis back in the day when you used to come and visit us at chat television, but we haven't talked to you on the porch yet, so we thought we'd be a good idea to just sort of run over what unison is and how you are connected to the Veiner center. Sure. Unison Veiner is actually part of unison. And so a number of years ago, the City of Medicine Hat was looking at contracting out the operation of Meals on Wheels and the Veiner Center. And so at the time, we were Kirby Center. And so Kirby Center's being existence for about 53 years now, and for the longest time we were known as Kirby Center in the province and in Calgary. And we bid on the contract to operate the Veiner Center. And when, when we got when we won that contract, we worked with a essentially a brand firm and they said, well, you need to come up with an umbrella brand. And so really Unison for the generation 50 plus just represents anything that we do to serve older adults in in Alberta. And that's mainly in Medicine Hat in Calgary. Okay. Now the virus center has been around for quite some time. Former mayor donated the land and they built it and it got flooded. And they fixed it and it got flooded. And then they fixed it again. It is a beautiful facility down on the edge of Lyons Park. And if you have not been there, I would encourage you to go, because there is a wealth of things for people to do there and people over 50. So yeah, I guess that's the starting point there. So what can a person over 50 find at the Veiner Center? Well, we have a pretty wide variety of things we do at the Veiner Center itself. And so, you know, when we started operating the center almost six years ago now, there was a lot of clubs that were operating out of the center. And so like a lot of recreational, like, you can play bridge, you can play crib, you can do quilting. I mean, a variety of things like that. And one of the things that we worked in partnership with the city was to bring a wider spectrum of, of supports and activities. And so we now provide we have more classes that there may be a fee involved, but we also partner with other organizations to provide, maybe counsel, for example, or mental health services or support groups. So there's a wide variety and we try to essentially target helping older adults live their best life. And so before we started taping we were talking about estate planning. And so we work with maybe local estate lawyers or investment professionals to do classes and orientations and help people prepare for their will or their estate and that type of thing. Okay. I'm wondering about if you do anything with how people retire. Yeah, that's another area where we're we're increasing our, our, our services supposedly in, in person so people can go take those kind of classes. But we're also creating a, a stable of materials on our YouTube channel where we have investment professionals help provide webinars, which we record and then put on that YouTube channel. I think I saw some courses are online. Are they live or are they prerecorded? They're they're both. We usually have a live sign up so people can sign up on our website for all sorts of classes on, on zoom or teams and, and we record those. So again, if you if you didn't get a chance to do it live, you can watch it later on. Okay. You always get to people. Well what happens if I don't have a computer? Yeah. What happens if I don't have a computer? Well, actually. Now now you can. Your iPhone or iPad or any kind of device. You can stream it for sure. Yeah. The Viper of Veiner caught my eye when I was grazing through the website. Is that all about. This is kind of one of our fun, fun things we do that is almost like a kind of reverse community integration. And so definitely people who are members and users of Veiner participate in this, but essentially targeting Seniors Week. As we're coming up to Seniors Week, we want our Veiner Viper to be in full, in full bloom. And so people, local schools, camp groups and so on will paint rocks to become part of the Viner Viper. And they get us streamed around our playground. So it'll be visual. And I'm sure people are going to enjoy having that to look at as well. For sure. For sure. Vintage transportation is another one that caught my eye from the website. Yeah, well, there was a program in the province a number of years ago started called Drive Happiness, and this program started as a way to support seniors who may have problems getting to their medical appointments or their legal appointments or whatever. And so we we sought funding from Healthy Aging Alberta and from the government of Alberta to fund the program. And so Veiner Vintage is actually an adaptation on the Drive Happiness program, where volunteers will help seniors who don't have their own transportation get to important medical appointments. What's the commitment? If you wanted to volunteer? There's not necessarily a minimum commitment. Our Meals on Wheels, our volunteers tend to be part of that, that rotation. Whereas this program, if you could only do a drive once, once a week or whatever, we'd still be interested in your help. Okay, the Meals on Wheels is really, I guess, where you got your foot in the door here, and that is still going strong. But a lot of challenges with the price of food and the price of gasoline. Yeah for sure. That's that's a challenging program. It is a program that has continued to grow over the last five years. And and we're excited about that. We have more routes and, and it seems like every year we add a couple more routes and it just kind of keeps continuing to grow. And we've also partnered with the municipality and Redcliff to expand our services out to Redcliff. So that's that's exciting. But like you say, that is a program that is very supported by volunteer investment, and it's hard for people to volunteer when the price of gas is so high. So we do have some supporters in the community that donate things like car washes and stuff like that. But also just the cost of groceries is is tremendous right now. So it is it is hard. We couldn't run that program without donations from the community, for sure. Not only the nutritional value of this program, but I know from past experience that for many of the people, this is their only contact with the outside world is when the Meals on Wheels driver comes. Yeah for sure. I mean, we think of it as it starts with food. And so it is a nutrition program in a way. And there's a lot of there's actually a lot of research behind the Meals on Wheels program. And the benefit it creates in some in a health system, for example, savings. But but the big thing for us is those volunteers become a social lifeline to to the users of that program. So it's a very important program for that for that reason alone. Yeah. You also under the umbrella, the Strathcona Center, a lot of things available there too. Yeah, it's part as part of our partnership with the city. We have access to the Strathcona Center, and we share that, particularly in the summer when the pool is open. But we have our gym there. So there's a fitness facility in that center so you can become a member of that as well, as well as things like pickleball operate out of that center as well. And we have office space as well. One of the programs we run that we've brought is social prescribing, which is another program where we partner with the Primary Care Network. And essentially, if you were if you you know, we have an adult child come to us and say, hey, you know, dad, dad keeps falling when he's trying to clean up the gutters and he can't keep up with the maintenance of his house. And, you know, we think he needs to move on to to long term care or something. And so a program like social prescribing gives medical professionals like primarily GPS, an option. It's like, well, you don't have to go into long term care because you can't keep up your property or you can't do this or that. And so our link workers will work in the community with with volunteer organizations and with other kind of partner agencies to help take away the things that would, would get in the way of you remaining in your in your home or in your community. Downsizing is another one for this particular demographic. I know that my wife and I went through that about two years ago. You don't realize how much stuff you have collected until you start to move, and it just seems to come out of the woodwork. Do you have any courses or any help to help people get ready to downsize? We do. We actually have a couple of videos on our YouTube channel. A lot of the partners we work with, either in the centers here and in Calgary, or who are advertisers in our units and newspaper, are essentially in the space of helping people with that downsizing. And and they do a variety of different things. But a number of those providers are quite, quite willing to do zoom sessions and webinars for us. So so we will have more in the future. There are some on the YouTube right now, but there's definitely more plan for this year. Elder abuse is another unfortunate thing that is in our society. Does the Veiner Center help people spot the signs of elder abuse and give them some ideas how to counter it? We do. We have outreach workers and caseworkers operating out of Veiner Center, which really means operating in the the area surrounding Medicine Hat. And so they help and they take referrals from other agencies, other social workers or whatever, and they'll take direct referrals from the community. So someone could call in for for help. But it is, you know, in Calgary, we operate the first purpose built elder abuse shelter in North America. And when I personally started working with Unison, I couldn't believe that there was a need for an elder abuse shelter. But but sure enough, you know, there is. And it's we're always at capacity. But also as we've done more outreach in the community, you just there's such a demand and the grandparents scams, another one that is out there. Do you I suppose you keep people your staff keep an era. Did I out just watching out for people to we do we are like our volunteers are trained to to help identify it. But we also work with partners like the RCMP and Better Business Bureau and so on to get information out to seniors about scams, because with, you know, scams, they're always getting more sophisticated. And and you probably most people have probably heard with AI the type of senior scams are going to continue to get more and more hard to discern. Yeah, they're the criminals are getting smarter. At least their machines are getting smarter. Yeah, that's for sure. Medicine hat, I guess, is the focus for the Veiner center. But you've already said that you also help serve Redcliff. What about Cypress County? Dunmore? Some of the smaller communities outside medicine. I can people come in, people can definitely come in. And we we certainly have people come in for some of our kind of our sessional things or events, and we are looking for ways and support to essentially kind of broaden our impact out into the rural area as well. Okay. Membership. Yeah. How much and how do I become a member? It's fairly easy. We have volunteers in the center. You can buy a membership. I think our membership is like $80 or something. Now the basic and if you want Fitness Plus it's a little more and so on. You can do it all on our website as well. You can just sign up directly on our website. If if your membership is coming, do our volunteers will tend to give you a reminder calls and so on, and they can take the information over the phone as well as also a way to donate to the center. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the majority of our donors at Veiner Center bring a check in to the volunteers at the door, but you can do it all online now as well. And and again, every year we have more of our donations come in on our online with your credit card or your bank debit card. Okay. And volunteering we have a nonstop need for volunteers, and partly because Meals on Wheels has continued to grow at a at a good clip, but also programs like VeinerVintage Transport need volunteer support all the time. So we, you know, in a given year we will likely serve will likely have more than 400 volunteers this year in the Veiner center doing something for seniors. Well, that is the heart blood of a lot of things in medicine, and it's good to know that people are volunteering. I also wanted to ask you about the bistro. The bistro. It's kind of our favorite part of of Veiner Center. The bistro is open every day, and you don't have to be a member to come and have lunch or have a coffee. But one of the things that Rick and the team have been working on is their themed dinners. And so they're trying to do at least one theme dinner per month. And and you can see those on our Facebook page or on our website. But again, having an evening where there's a planned menu and affordable price and usually some form of entertainment. Okay, Larry Mathieson, anything else you wanted to add before we wrap up? No, I think we're just thrilled with the community support we've got in Medicine Hat of the programs we're trying to operate, both in terms of volunteer investment in people's donation of their financial resources. So just thrilled to be working in a community like Medicine Hat. Larry Mathieson, thank you for the visit. My my pleasure.