One hundred years ago today, May 31, 1912, the Jewish community established the Moshav Zkeinim Home for the Aged Society. Now known as Village Shalom, the continuing care retirement community began celebrating its 100th anniversary earlier this year and will continue to do so through its Ages of Excellence Celebration in November.

One reason the facility is able to celebrate this milestone is a successful effort that culminated last fall in which the continuing care facility was able to reduce the $40 million in capital debt on its 26-acre campus to a more manageable $16 million.

“We have so much to celebrate,” said Matthew E. Lewis, Village Shalom’s president and CEO. “Having such a successful capital debt reduction campaign has truly solidified the financial stability of the organization.”

“To be able to carry that forward and celebrate 100 years of serving the Jewish community is really special and it’s really meaningful. The timing of it has just been a real blessing. It certainly has given us much more to celebrate.”

Today there are approximately 100 Jewish senior living facilities in North America. However other communities haven’t been as successful as Kansas City in maintaining these facilities, with at least three closing in the last five years. Michael Abrams, chairman of the board, believes the Kansas City Jewish community should be proud it’s been able to support Village Shalom.

“Our tradition teaches us a community is judged on three questions: how we educate our young, how we treat our poor and how we care for our elderly. We can all take pride in that through Village Shalom we’ve been able to fulfill the obligation of caring for our elderly and will continue to do so in the years to come,” Abrams said.

Lewis, who is not Jewish, noted that one of the main reasons Village Shalom has survived and thrived over the years is due to the depth of support it receives from the Jewish community.

“It’s not just the financial backing of our facilities. It’s the commitment, the caring, the volunteering … all of the different aspects of how this organization works. I’ve worked for other faith-based retirement communities, and I think truly the Jewish community’s commitment to caring for the elderly far surpasses any other faith-based organization that I’ve worked for,” Lewis said.

In particular, Lewis praises the support the board has provided over the years.

“We’ve always had and we continue to have very strong board leadership. I’ve always been grateful for the people from the community that have given so much of their time to serve on our board. It’s a huge time commitment,” he said

Staying on solid footing

Lewis has been with Village Shalom for 12 years, first serving as chief financial officer. He will celebrate his seventh anniversary as chief executive office tomorrow, June 1. During that time he has always had to keep an eye on the financial situation.

Administrators often worry about reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid, entitlement and insurance programs that many residents rely on. Those revenue streams are very tenuous and often vulnerable to budget cuts.

While revenue from those programs will continue to be unpredictable in the future, Lewis points out that Village Shalom’s occupancy rates continue to be strong.

“Last year, 2011, concluded our fifth straight year of 95 percent occupancy or higher and we’re on track to achieve that in 2012,” Lewis said. “Five years and running is a pretty remarkable stretch.”

Not everyone Village Shalom serves is a resident, and those numbers continue to rise as well.

“For example our dementia day program, on an annual basis, typically serves 100-plus people. We provide outpatient therapy and our wellness center has community participation. So when you look at all of the unique individuals that we serve, it’s well over 700 people on an annual basis and that number has really continued to grow over the last several years,” Lewis said.

When he became CEO, one of his primary goals was to build a management team that not only had more experience within their respective areas of expertise but also more industry experience.

“I also worked hard on retention so that Village Shalom had stability on the management team level,” he said.

Along those lines, he also set in motion plans to attract high-quality employees and retain them through training, staff development and employee recognition and appreciation.

Lewis can point to the fact that strides in those areas have led to decreased employee turnover in five of the last seven years. In 2004, employee turnover was 101 percent. In 2010 it was 23 percent and in 2011 it was 30 percent. Lewis said the industry average is between 60 and 70 percent annually.

In the next 10 years, Lewis said continuing to attract quality employees will be one of the facility’s challenges.

“There are a lot of good nurses and staff members that are very good in terms of their skill set or their clinical knowledge, but we also seek staff that care very deeply about our mission of taking care of the elderly,” Lewis explained.

“We want our staff to provide our residents with a dignified quality of life that far surpasses other organizations. It takes really special staffers to do that,” he continued.

Providing quality care

Indeed Lewis is proud of the care Village Shalom offers seniors, and said it can’t be matched anywhere else in the community.

“People of other faiths truly know the quality of care that we provide, so they understand that there’s a real commitment to that,” Lewis said.

The CEO feels that Village Shalom’s commitment to quality care distinguishes it from other similar facilities in the area. He also feels Village Shalom offers unique things others don’t.

“Certainly one of the things that comes to mind is the gallery. No other facility that I am aware of has a gallery or something that even compares to what we have,” Lewis said.

He said Village Shalom is always challenging itself to do new and creative programs and activities for its residents.

“We do much more by way of programs and activities than any other facility within the metro area,” he said. “We provide well beyond just the typical things that you would think of. We do those things, too, and they are important, but we try to go above and beyond. We try to inject new activities.”

Lewis said meeting individual interests is another thing at which Village Shalom excels.

“We do a lot of group activities and programs, but we go above and beyond to see that the individual interests and hobbies of our residents are met because that’s important to the individual. We strive to provide that holistic care,” he continued.

The celebration

Lewis said Village Shalom is currently firming up details to share several celebratory anniversary events with the entire Jewish community. Dates have not yet been confirmed, but they include a birthday party at Village Shalom, a speech at the White Theatre by Rabbi Irwin Kula, the president of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, and the annual Ages of Excellence Event in November.

Village Shalom’s humble beginnings

In 2012, 91 Orthodox Jews signed the charter for the Moshav Zkeinim Home for the Aged Society. A 14-room house located at 29th and Troost was donated by Herman Appleman in 1918. Named the Michael Appleman Home in memory of Herman’s son, it began accepting residents in 1918 and served the community at that location for nearly 32 years. A neighboring house was purchased to provide additional residential space, and its garage served as the facility’s synagogue.

Ground was broken for a new home at 78th and Holmes in 1948. Two years later in 1950, 18 senior adults moved into the facility, which was now called the Home for the Jewish Aged. At that time it could accommodate 76 residents. In 1954 a Special Services unit opened, increasing the home’s capacity to 90 residents.

The name changed again in 1967 to the Jewish Home for the Aged. The home’s capacity doubled, increasing to 181 residents, in 1968. A new name, Jewish Geriatric and Convalescent Center, was adopted in 1970, this time to reflect an expansion of services.

Shalom Plaza Apartments and Multi-Activity Senior Center opened next door to JGCC with 125 apartments in 1978. In an effort to identify that JGCC and Shalom Plaza facilities were branches of a single organization, the home changed its name to Shalom Geriatric Center in 1985.

Plans for the new Village Shalom, located on 26 acres in Overland Park, were finalized in 1997. Village Shalom opened its doors to the community almost 12 years ago on June 20, 2000.