SARASOTA, Fla. — Another themed private pay adult day care center for seniors opened with fanfare Thursday in Sarasota. More than 200 gathered for the opening event at the new flagship location for ActivAge on Bee Ridge Road.
The facility is styled as a "day-cation" care club to provide a fun, colorful, and lively environment for seniors. The adult day center model is a trend growing across the country as baby boomers make up the population of seniors and millennials start to navigate adult care for their parents.
"It gave us extra time to be with my mom at home because I was still working and for 2 1/2 years she actually lived with me so that gave me extra time to make the transition into the senior community," Tanyah Lockett said.
Before her mom Colleen Abraham's death two years ago, Lockett said connecting with Kris Chana who ran a Charlotte County adult day center under a different name was a lifeline for her family.
"The gift that he gave my mom and the gift that he gave our family we can never return. We can never compensate him enough," Lockett said.
Working together, they got creative to find a suitable situation to help Colleen, a former accountant, who was struggling with dementia.
The center provided her with daily work-like tasks to stay busy and pass the time and included incentive points that were to her similar to a weekly direct deposit. This allowed her daughter the ability to focus on her job during work hours and earn real money to sustain care for her mother.
"I felt relief, I felt that my mom was going to be safe when I wasn't around her, that she was going to be well, cared for, and that she wasn't someplace being mistreated," Lockett said.
"We are creating a fun, safe environment that works with health care because healthcare is the foundational element to what we do. But there's this like aesthetic appeal, there's something that doesn't make it feel like that institutional healthcare setting," Channa said.
Chana and his wife Chelsea who are both from Sarasota County have now replicated that service and opened the flagship location for ActivAge.
"Sarasota is the birthplace of adult day, the birthplace of private pay adult day," Chana said.
ActivAge Sarasota, the most recent themed adult day center in the Sarasota area, is aimed at creating experiences for seniors. In late 2021, the 1950s-themed Town Square opened a location on Central Sarasota Parkway to cater to seniors needing cognitive and memory care and another on Lockwood Ridge Road serving the Lakewood Ranch area last spring.
On the other hand, ActivAge's aesthetic has taken a leaf from Jimmy Buffet's discography and gone for the quintessential Florida vacation vibe.
"Margaritaville is our inspiration," Chana said. "We wanted them to feel like it's a vacation for both their loved one who is attending and also for the family member who now gets to go do something for themselves."
Local aging care experts said for seniors and their families, adult daycares are taking away the stigma of healthcare, helping them navigate financial constraints and apprehension about traditional senior care models.
"Assisted living is outrageously expensive in our country. Many times the senior or the senior's family absolutely cannot afford that, so adult daycare is what I would say a very safe alternative," Robin Stover, the director of legal services for United Way of South Sarasota County, said.
"You'll see more and more of these options that are catering to middle America who don't qualify for Medicaid, but want a more affordable solution. This helps them bridge the gap so they can still continue to live at home and then they can share resources together and the family can keep an eye on their loved ones and make sure that they're safe and taken care of during the day," Chana said.
Many adult day centers are membership bases and costs vary by location and service options. Many also offer guest passes to families to tour their facility or experience some activities to make sure the program is the right fit for a loved one.