Published: June 06, 2009 12:15 am      

Brethren Community adds apartments for seniors

PAINT — More seniors are considering continuing care retirement communities to simplify their lives and plan for future health needs.

This week’s opening of Coventry Place independent living apartments at Church of the Brethren Community Windber provides welcome options for a number of area seniors.

All 15 apartments were filled before they were built, Chief Executive Officer Thomas Reckner said.

“We are giving people an alternative when they get to the point they are not able to take care of their homes anymore,” Reckner said.

“Our goal is to keep them independent as long as we can.”

As a continuing care retirement community licensed by the state Insurance Department, Church of the Brethren Community provides different levels of care for the aging. From independent living apartments and cottages, community residents have first options in the assisted living and skilled care nursing facilities on the campus as their health needs increase.

Church of the Brethren Community was founded as a nursing home in 1921.

Today the community centers on the original nursing home in Paint Borough, along with The Cottages at Orchard Point, Taufer Place and Coventry Place independent living apartments and Pettikoffer House assisted living apartments.

The campus covers 30 acres in and is home to about 400 seniors.

“We have the whole gamut,” Reckner said. “We have been here a long time, and lifestyles of the elderly are changing.”