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Community Corner

Aviv Donates 90 Bedroom Sets to the Don Orione Home

Movers pack up the beds from the former JRC and move them to the Don Orione Home in East Boston.

 

When the Jewish Rehabilitation Center closed in September and moved residents to the brand new, state-of-the-art Waldfogel Health Center on the Aviv Centers for Living campus in Peabody, they sought a use for the JRC furniture.

The found a worthy partner in the Don Orione Home, a longterm care facility in East Boston owned by the Brothers of Divine Providence, a Catholic order based in Rome. Part of the Don Orione Home had not been renovated since 1949 and still used the older style crank beds. The movers came Tuesday to transfer the equipment.

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In gratitude, the Don Orione Home is making a $15,000 donation to the Aviv Foundation.

“We just thought it was the right thing to do. They are a small, older nursing home without good financial support and it was a good fit for us to donate,” said Jeff Gopen, Aviv’s executive director of skilled nursing.

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Anthony Cerasuolo, owner of Orient Heights Senior Living, the management company of Don Orione for the past year, said they did not have the capital to do the upgrades without this help from Aviv.

“This is an upgrade to what we had and it is in the spirit of one nonprofit helping another. Without Aviv’s help, this might have taken 92 years,” Cerasuolo joked.

With the move to Peabody, Aviv purchased new furniture that incorporates the latest technologies for reducing such things as sores or unwanted movement when adjusting the beds. 

The Don Orione Home is located across from the Madonna Queen National Shrine, a national historic site. Aviv Centers for Living is located on a 22-acre campus in Peabody. In addition to the new Waldfogel Health Center, Aviv is home to the Woodbridge Assisted Living, Aviv Adult Day Health Center and other services for elders as well as the North Suburban Jewish Community Center and its preschool, and the Jewish Heritage Society of the North Shore.

Aviv also donated some kitchen equipment to the Swampscott Fire Department and they are giving the Swampscott Police Department a projector system from the JRC that can be used with for presentations. The police plan to use it in the emergency operations center of the new police station when it opens this spring.

“The police and fire departments have given us great service over the years,” said Marcos Stadler, director of environmental services for Aviv Centers for Living campus.

“This is equipment we need for the new station and we certainly appreciate the donation and the longstanding positive relationship over the years,” said Police Chief Ronald Madigan.

The things from the JRC that were not moved to the new Aviv campus were offered to employees at a nominal price, like $5 for a television. The proceeds went directly to the employee emergency fund. Other items were offered to the Swampscott public safety departments and much of it went to Don Orione. The rest will be going to impoverished nations identified by employees from those nations, according to Gopen.

“They tell us this stuff would be like gold in their countries,” Gopen said.

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