Mayberry Gardens, Grand Prairie

Stan4

We've looked into Mayberry Gardens, Grand Prairie's assisted living. The tour was very good, and I liked it a lot. I like the facility and the people there. They have four buildings on the same level and it's a very nice facility, but my parents are not interested at this time. They also have memory care there; if the need for care progresses, they could change it. I thought it was excellent. I thought the facilities were clean, nicely organized, and had good people running them. I was very impressed with the buildings, but it was mostly the people and how professional they were. They seemed very good. The rooms are good. We were looking at 1-bedroom apartments with a living room. They're small, but you have to look at the living facility that they're in. You have to look outside the room, and they have other rooms where the residents meet with people from all around. They have recreational areas, a barber shop, and a salon. There was a lady there that's been cutting hair and doing men's hair for years, and it looked very nice. They also have activities that they schedule all the time. We met a lady there, her husband's gone now, and she's like 95 years old. She was so ecstatic and showed us her room and how she decorated it. She's happy there. She's got a daughter who lives close by. For a 95-year-old, she was still very energetic, and she didn't have anything bad to say about this facility. She's one of the original people who has been there since day one. She loves it, and her apartment is set up like her house. I wish I could remember the name of the person who gave us the tour because she was great. There's also a young lady whom we talked to about finances. They had an opening for a larger room, but we were thinking we had to talk to mom and dad first, and they held it for us with no money down for a couple of days. They worked with us so well, it was nice. All of the staff members there were outstanding. They are all on top of it. We checked the dining area, but we didn't try the food at that time. For each building, they have their own managers, cooks, and facility people. They all seemed to be very knowledgeable and very professional, and it was a very clean facility. You walk out of your apartment, and you go out into the living area and the kitchen, and everything's there. If the residents wanted a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, it's all provided right there. They take care of all the medicines, too, so your parents can rely on them in giving their medications and everything, which is nice.

James

I toured Mayberry Gardens, Grand Prairie. I liked it. It was close to my home, which is one plus, but it was expensive. The grounds were beautiful, very nice, and clean. The lady who gave me the tour was very professional and friendly. It's a good facility. I did visit the dining room and it looked fine, very clean, and orderly. The menu looked good, but I didn't sample. The activities were all good.

Betty

Mayberry Gardens is fairly new. It's only two and a half years old and seems like you get a lot for the money. It's very reasonable. The rooms were very nice with nice furniture. They're very roomy and the one we're getting has a little kitchenette with a little refrigerator. The man who gave us the tour was very nice and answered all of our questions. Maybe he wasn't as warm as the other people from the other places we toured, but he did well. They just hardly have any activities for now. He said a lot of it was due to COVID. They have a lot more group activities normally, but the individual home activities are at a minimum.

Rhonda

My mother-in-law is in Mayberry Gardens in Grand Prairie. She's in their assisted living. It's pretty good. I've had a couple of little issues, but I think they've been resolved. Everybody there is very kind and friendly. The community layout is beautiful. They can improve on, maybe, the employees paying a little more attention to the residents. 90% of the staff that I have come in contact with are very kind, attentive, eager to make things comfortable and right. We have not eaten there yet, but my mother-in-law likes the food. She eats everything and that's not normal for her. At home, the food that I know she loves, she didn't always eat. She liked to eat out mostly. As far as I know, she's eating all the food there. What I've seen from their menu and everything is really good too. The ladies there gather and do puzzles and I think they've done bingo. They do some things for the community on the weekend too, for the residents' families to come but I haven't attended and we haven't been there long enough for any of that. I've had a couple of issues. I've had to go to the director and let them know that my mother-in-law had been there for about 3 weeks and her room hadn't been cleaned at all. I had to go and bring that up to the director because the house manager, I have a little issue with her because I don't think she's attentive. At least in my mother-in-law's case, she was not attentive to her. I asked her if she could turn on my mother-in-law's TV because she doesn't remember how to use the remote. I asked her if she could turn the TV on for her in the morning. Not that she has to go out of her way, but just when she takes my mother on morning meds or when she goes and gets her for breakfast or something. She told me that she would but then she has not been doing it. So, she is the one employee that I have a problem with, so far.

Debbie

Mayberry Gardens is a very different kind of assisted living community in which the residents are gathered into individual houses where there's a maximum of 15 residents in each house. Each house has like a large living area, a very large professional kitchen, kind of in an open concept way where you would find it in an actual home. There's a small dining area attached just the way you would find in an actual house, except that it was very large, big front porch with rocking chairs, and then 15 bedrooms with attached bathrooms, and I enjoyed it there. Dad did not end up choosing to go there because he didn't want to be trapped in a building with 15 other residents in case he didn't like them; he wanted more people to choose from. I understood that, being a man, because he wanted there to be a selection of men, and of course, many of these communities are populated by women. But I appreciated this place, particularly as his own capabilities declined. We looked back at this place again because everything was so close and they did activities right there in the house, they took meals right there in the house, and the caregivers would know him. This is a campus that has five or six houses, and each house was dedicated to different levels of care, like there would be a memory care house in an assisted living care house, and there were several of each. It was just a very personal situation, I thought, where dinner would be cooked fresh and personally, and served right up there at the table, and like a home. So I think it would be very valuable for many, many seniors, and I'll look at it again when my own parents are ready. The activities are mostly brought into the houses, like if they were going to play bingo, they play it in each house. Now, they do have an activity room that is centrally located. It does involve going outside to get to, which many seniors don't want to do, because it's too hot or too cold or whatever, but they do have an activity room where they can have larger events, they can show movies, or have entertainment. It's in a central building between all of the houses, but one thing I liked about it is that during COVID they were able to continue many things that some of the larger communities weren't able to do, because they had too many residents to gather them, and they had a house with only 12 or 14 residents, and at any given time they were able to spread people out and continue doing activities, which I think would have been super. The whole place is owned by a family, and one member of that family runs this location, and he personally gave me the tour, spent time, and gave me his cell phone number. I just talked to him yesterday. He's very, very connected to family, and felt very involved in the process of trying to create a plan of care. I told you that Dad rejected this place, and he did initially, but then his own capabilities declined. We took a second look at this place and I went back to them and said, "OK, here's the situation now. What can we work out?" And they were incredibly accommodating, even allowing me to consider putting him there on hospice. We didn't end up doing that. He spiraled downhill too quickly, but we were considering it, and they were willing to talk about it, and work with me on that kind of unusual arrangement. I enjoyed that.

Andra

The people at Mayberry Gardens Assisted Living and Memory Care Homes in Grand Prairie are cordial and friendly. The place is bright and clean. I was very glad I chose to place my sister there. My sister was a past resident in the assisted living and I'm pleased with their care. Her room was very spacious and kept clean. The room was very spacious and well-kept. They were a bit understaffed at the time I was there but based upon the staff available, they did respond as quickly as possible.