Timber Tots to brighten lives of Mercy residents
by Dan McClelland
The feeling of home will be enhanced for many seniors here living at Mercy Living Center with the arrival this month of youngsters in the Timber Tots daycare center.
Sarah Dew Pratt's daycare center business is in the process of relocating to what was once the surgical wing of Mercy General Hospital in converted quarters there- and just a short walk down several corridors in the building to many local seniors.
The younger and older folks had a bit of a test run before Christmas when they got together in Mercy's activity room to make Christmas ornaments together. There were new friendships already blossoming that afternoon.
Currently Sarah has six children at her business which up to now has been based at her home just beyond the family's Timber Lodge.
The day we visited the activity room last month, Sarah said the new rooms at Mercy have been all redecorated in bright colors and she was just awaiting final permission from New York State to move in and get things going.
The newly relocated daycare business will be open to all Tupper Lake families. It will be particularly handy for employees of Mercy to have their youngsters cared for in the same building where they work.
“We hope to do these kind of integrated activities once or twice a month,” Sarah said of forthcoming interactions between the young and the young at heart.
This past summer the senior citizens and the Timber Tots met one afternoon in the center's Monarch Butterfly garden to enjoy the colorful insects together.
The arrival of the daycare center to the local nursing home is a first for Mercy and a first in New York State, according to Mrs. Pratt.
She and her staff will be able to care for as many as 22 pre-schoolers each day. Sarah is currently looking for qualified daycare workers to assist her.
Linda McClarigan, chief experience officer at Mercy and previously the chief nursing officer at Adirondack Health who oversaw all nursing services at the local hospital, said she has been helping out at Mercy for the past two years. She hopes the seniors and the youngsters might come together for fun and activities as often as once a week.
“Sarah and Jamie Reynolds, the activities director at Mercy, are expected to plan more things together” in the months ahead.
“This is going to be very nice for Tupper Lake,” she said of the new arrangement at Mercy.
In the renovated quarters there were some physical alterations and new carpeting in the rooms.
Funding for the redecorating work came from both Adirondack Health which owns the elder facility here and the Adirondack Foundation's Cloudsplitter program, which helps underwrite charitable acts and good projects in the region.
The new collaboration is the first of its kind, at least in this state, Ms. McClarigan told the Free Press. “It's very innovative from the multi-generational” mission stand-point, she noted.
It's taken a year to make this happen and to complete the state regulations necessary to permit it.
“Good things take a while,” she said with a knowing grin.
To run a licensed daycare center operators must have certification from both the Office of Family and Children's Services and the state Department of Health.
One of the rooms in the renovated wing used to be Mercy Hospital's operating room, before the hospital closed in the 1970s. Where scalpels were once the tools, toys and books are now.
Every room, according to Linda, has a different theme and a different color scheme. There are toys galore, appropriate to each age group. There is a small kitchenette connected to the complex.
Each room is equipped with a first aid kit for quick attention to any small cuts or scrapes that may happen during play.
Each room of the new daycare center serves a different pre-school population. There's a baby room big enough to accommodate four infants, explained Linda.
Each of the other three rooms are specific to age, but there will be times each day when all the kids will come together for activities, she noted.
The program is through age 5 although there's some thought by Sarah right now to eventually offer an after-school program for local children, the Mercy official noted.
Mercy Director Madaline Toliver says their new daycare center will be open to everyone in the community.
-And she admits it is going to be very convenient for her staff members who choose to enroll their youngsters there.
The staff at the Adirondack Health complex across the street will also now have close proximity to daycare services for their children.
“There's a place for babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers,” she explained during the tour.
The daycare area has its own separate entrance from the west end of the building.
“It's very secure!” The doors are locked as they must be, noted the director.
“Even my staff members can't come in here” without permission, she added.
The daycare center is a separate entity within the facility. “We are releasing the space to Sarah and she is an independent proprietor,” Director Toliver explained.
The daycare will operate under Sarah's new state license, the requirements of which she was finishing late last month.
Ms. Toliver noted there are plans in the works to have art students at Tupper High draw murals on several of the walls of the new kids' place.
The activity room at Mercy is not the only place the children and the residents will interact. Another place is what once was the lobby beyond the front entrance and what is now Mercy's new “Happy Days Cafe,” a bright and colorful 1950s style place, complete with juke box.
It's the place where the seniors living at Mercy have been routinely enjoying their coffees and also servings of ice cream and other treats.
“One of things we hope to do is have the kids come to the cafe to join the seniors for cookie hour or cocoa hour,” said Ms. McClarigan.
The corridor connecting the cafe to the daycare center has been redecorated with new walls and flooring as a new “main street” and on the walls are many of Jane Gillis' paintings, all donated by her family.
Off the main street is a tiny gift shop, a chapel, and beauty shop called “Cuts and Curls.”
The spaces served by the new main street used to be offices at Mercy. The administrative offices have moved up to the building's third floor.
Back in the activities room that day ornament-making was in full swing with glue, paper, crayons and colorful sprinkles in the hands of artists of all ages. There were giggles and grins and squeals of laughter.
By her comments that day, Sarah Pratt is very excited about her new project. She said right now her plan is to care for children up to age five. One group will be six weeks to 18 months. Another age will be 18 to 36 months and then three and four year olds.
She said some of the activities they intend to organize involve the two groups jointly making things. “Or we may do things like parachute games where everyone can just enjoy each others company.”
“It's called multi-generational learning. Everyone benefits and it really helps the kids learn and learn about others.”
New loves and new friendships are expected to be big common denominators starting this year at Mercy Living Center.
