Kennedy Meadows Gracious Retirement Living

George

I'm in Kennedy Meadows Gracious Retirement Living. It has no reception desk. They have couples who live in and serve as managers. Right now, there are three couples here serving as managers. One couple is called manager. The other two are called assistant managers. They offer three meals a day. I don't eat three meals a day, but it's available as part of the rent. They serve in the dining room as servers, pouring coffee and stuff like that. It's a very strange kind of management system. The problem is it's strictly independent. if anything happens to you and you need other kind of care, it's not available here. They have a lot of small apartments here. I have a studio apartment, but there are two different sizes of studio apartments. I have the larger one, which is like a big motel room. They don't offer kitchen facilities like a stove. Even a garbage disposal is not there. It's just a sink and counter. I have my toaster and microwave, but other than that, I couldn't cook anything. It's big enough for me, but it's only about 400 square feet. The smaller ones are only about 200 or 300 square feet. I have about three closets. The managers who live in have full-capability kitchens. They've got 70 some places around the country. The menu they offer here is offered in all 70 places at the same time. The staff is fine. They're always short of help here for housekeeping. They are run like a hotel. They provide you the bed linens and towels. They do housekeeping every week. They also provide two rolls of toilet paper to each apartment every week. They do all of that as part of the rent. They're short of kitchen help. Right now we don't have a bus driver, so there's no shuttle. That kind of stuff happens regularly here. The staff have to do what they have to do. Everything is dictated by the corporate level. The place itself is only three years old and it's beautiful. It has its own theater and chapel, but there are no grounds around it. You can walk around the building, but there's no other place to walk outside because we are right on a road and the only sidewalks are the ones that go around the building, so you can't have group activities outside because there's no place to do that. Our activities director is a novice and she's just finding her way and it's a long learning curve. She is not a fast learner and she was hired without experience. You can have a hot or cold breakfast every day and they're fine. The dinners are, in general, not great. The suppers are not as great as the dinner. I didn't hear anybody was very happy about it. I would rate value for money pretty high. They don't require a community fee to get in here. They don't require you to buy in to get here. I'm quite satisfied with the rent here and because they offer three meals a day and a lot of other stuff.

Patricia

I was very impressed with Kennedy Meadows Gracious Retirement Living. The pricing was reasonable. It's down to like $3,400 a month and that's the range that we're looking at. That is an independent living facility. And so, I liked that. It was new because the building was only two years old. So, it's new construction.

Monica

Kennedy Meadows Gracious Retirement Living is very clean and well organized with just the right amount of services for my father. The dining room is fantastic. The activities are really good. It's just the right fit for him. It's what he needed because he doesn't need too much. He just doesn't want to be alone, so we moved there for the community. They have some church services, and every morning, they have gentle yoga, tai-chi, and stretching. They always keep the residents in mind. They have movies every day at 2:00 and 7:00, and they have a nice movie theater with fresh popcorn. They help him get to his doctors' visits. They are close to the VA in Bedford, Massachusetts, so they can help get him to and from appointments. They have a bus that will take them out to do shopping and errands. There's a lot of flexibility because they can make different requests if they want to go somewhere. I've only met two staff members, but they were both fantastic. I'm having my first dinner there on Wednesday. We looked at about 10 different places. I will say it was a great value for the money, but I think it's because it was the right fit for what we needed for care. We didn't need a lot of medical care, but you can always add that on if you need it. It's very flexible and very good.

Mary Ann

I toured Kennedy Meadows Gracious Retirement Living. I appreciated the wide hallways, the bright lighting, the common areas, and the people that I met. It was all very positive. The sales staff was very nice. The food was excellent. The facilities looked lovely, they were very nice, and most of them had balconies.