By By MARCIA STEFFENS / Niles Daily Star
NILES - Where can you learn about exercise and volunteer opportunities at the same time? The Brentwood Senior Fair coming to Brentwood Assisted Living, 1147 South Third St., Niles, is bring information from many sources all to the same location.
The public is invited to come and share in this free event between 1:30 and 4 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 13, which includes refreshments and door prizes.
The idea was Leona Hein's, the new community relations director. She knew they have held health fairs in previous years, by she felt more information could be added, such as financial advice.
Hein had been at home in Niles for 15 years raising five children, and sheep which she then shears and weaves into yarn.
For the fair she still included health advice on cancer and depression, and blood pressure screenings, but also has invited those with home health care equipment, diabetic shoes, and hearing aid products.
The Alzheimer's Association will be represented along with the Berrien County Cancer Service.
Volunteer opportunities will be presented by the Southwest Volunteer Center of Niles and area exercise programs will also be explained.
Lakeland Hospital in Niles will present its resource library and the Niles Senior Center will tell of its activities.
Brentwood also has a new administrator, Traci Zimmerman of Mishawaka, Ind., who came as director of nursing last April. She has been in long term care for eight to 10 years and assisted living since 1995.
She praised Hein who is planning even more events which the public will be invited to participate in, along with their 59 residents and 43 employees.
They are excited about another coming event at Brentwood, a visit from the mystery writer Terri Kay of Elkhart, Ind. She will be at Brentwood on Friday, Jan. 28 from 2 to 3 p.m.
Kay's murder mystery series, "A Promise of Revenge," will be available for purchase and the author's signature.
drew for her experience in providing legal services to nursing homes and hospitals in the Milwaukee area. She intertwined medical and legal subplots, Hein said, to create "A Promise of Revenge (The Death of Javier)" in 2003, and "The Secret of St. Sans," in 2004.