Living Independently For Elders celebrated the official opening of its doors at 3823 Market Street to the Philadelphia community on Friday.
With the help of Penn's Nursing School, the Rolston House, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Department of Public Welfare and the Lady's Aid Society, LIFE has been able to expand its enterprise to Market Street.
Nancy O'Connor of CMS said that this opening makes the Market Street Center for LIFE the "very first site sponsored by a school of nursing in the United States."
LIFE is affiliated with the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, and has been in existence for five years.
There are a total of 250 members registered in the LIFE Program, with a daily capacity of 90 people.
However, there has only been one previously built LIFE Center before this grand opening.
Not only is LIFE the only site sponsored by a nursing school, but it is also staffed by many of Penn's very own nursing students who volunteer to help with the array of activities that take place at the center each and every day.
Nursing Professor Eileen Sullivan-Marx said it "is a dream how nurses could help the Philadelphia elderly providing partnership, leadership, commitment and celebration."
According to LIFE officials, physicians, nurses, dieticians, caregivers, occupational and physical therapists and nursing students all work together at the facility.
LIFE functions like a daycare center, but it also provides an opportunity for seniors who suffer from restricting health problems to get proper care and treatment without being separated from their families.
Each day a staff of six drivers picks up the LIFE members from their homes to bring them to either the Woodland or Market branch.
While at LIFE, services include not only medical and nursing treatments affiliated with Philadelphia's Presbyterian Hospital, but also meal planning, daily recreation, nail and hair care and even in-home assistance if requested.
And according to LIFE officials, the center's members also go to art therapy, listen to short stories, attend choir rehearsal and even go bowling and karaoke singing.
At Friday's celebration, LIFE member and retired musician and composer Ronald Jackson -- one of LIFE's original four members -- performed a song he composed especially for the center.
"My daughter told me to come," said Jackson, because "I needed help to get around. So she called and they came to talk to me."
Jackson showed how helpful LIFE's program has been to him when he brought tears to the eyes of friends and family who listened to his singing -- at 66 years old, it was evident that Jackson still has his spark.
And at the end of the event, Jackson cut a red and blue ribbon to mark the grand opening of the Market Street Center.
Still, the opening of this new center is just the beginning of a movement to expand the Program of All-Inclusive Care.
Estelle Richman of the Department of Public Welfare and LIFE officials hope to spread the concept of the program throughout Pennsylvania.
According to City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, the new center "looks like it's always been here."
