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Sunrise celebrates its 20th year
By Scott Steinberg
Sunrise of Sunnyvale has shown a bit more elegance than the average retirement home, and Dec. 5 was no exception. To celebrate the 20th birthday of its parent company, Sunrise Assisted Living, the home hosted a white-cloth banquet for its residents.
Twenty years ago Terry and Paul Klaasen opened a senior living home in Oakton, Va. They say they set out to create a comfortable world for senior citizens in need of living assistance and take the lifeless, antiseptic principles of gerontologic care and turn them on their ears.
One hundred and eighty-three Sunrises later, the Klaassen's are privileged to say, at the very least, that the idea has caught on.
The approximately 40 residents attending the Dec. 5 banquet dined on French onion soup and a main course of prawns and recounted with equanimity the long lives they have led (at the best of times) and endured (at the worst).
For many the banquet was not just about congratulating the Klaassen's for making strides in the field of assisted living. For staff members such as Activities Director Lynda Kennedy-Damiano, a toast was in order for the seniors themselves.
"These are incredibly wise people," she said. "These are former doctors, teachers, engineers ... They don't ever need to be talked down to. They need to be celebrated."
Carolyn Canepari, 95, said she has been at the Sunnyvale home since it opened in July 2000. Close to 25 years ago she developed an ulcer. She said her family thought it best that she quit her job as medical secretary for a gynecologist in San Mateo. So she did. A few months later, her dentist asked her to do some part-time secretarial work for him. In two weeks, she was pulling a full load. Twenty-three years later she retired, for the second time.
If it weren't for a chronic bout with dizziness Agnes Rodriguez, 94, would be as a sharp a dancer as she was in her youth.
"I love to dance," she said. "We would do the Twirl. We would twirl, twirl and we never fell. They would always think we would fall, but we never did."
Rodriguez, who moved into the retirement home seven months ago, said she has the unique experience of knowing her great-great-great-granddaughter.
Kennedy-Damiano said that she has "fallen in love with the residents." Although her friends warned her she would be depressed working with the elderly, she has found the contrary to be true.
"I have never been depressed here. We all take care of each other," she said.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
