Our Stories

Eight Sienna graduates line up, smiles on their faces, as they receive their Director of Care Clinical Leadership certificate. Most of them have been in the director of care role for over a year, but they still felt they learned a great deal from the course.

The room is filled with a buzz of chatter, interrupted by the constant sound of scissors snipping away at brightly-coloured milk bags.

It would be dark, and often cool, when 16-year-old Gord McGregor would walk his girlfriend, Margaret, home from the skating rink in Dundee, Scotland. The two had met at that skating rink, and Gord was sure to always walk Margaret home. Afterwards, it would take him nearly 45 minutes to walk back to his house.

On August 14, 1974 Doris Prosser began her first day of work as a nurse’s aide at Muskoka Nursing Home. She was 17 years old.

In 1983, Ivy Slater joined her local curling club on an exchange to Scotland, where the sport was invented 500 years before. She says it is the highlight of her curling experience, which saw her in the club four times a week for 30 years.

When Villa Leonardo Gambin Care Community in Woodbridge first opened there were more team members than residents. It’s something that’s certainly changed in the last 13 years, but Vanessa Romero, winner of the Ontario Long-Term Care Association’s Nursing Senior Leadership Award and Director of Care at Villa Leonardo, still remembers it fondly.

Any pastor on Earth can tell you that the devil is full of lies and deceit, but most don’t prove their point with card tricks.

Clover, a jet-black, 120lb potbelly pig, walks out to a round of applause. Residents, seated on lawn chairs, watch as Clover performs tricks. She’s happy to do her figure eights and push a ball with her snout. She’ll even roll over for a belly rub.

When Charlotte Daly found a stray kitten in a parking lot, she named him Raider and took him home to meet her other cat, Sparkie. Their adventures together became the inspiration for a book.

Loud cheering, complete with a chorus of We Are the Champions, rang through the halls and up to the third floor where the Bible study group had been in session. Now, however, the entire residence was coming down to see what all the ruckus was about.

“One! Two! Three!”

Eighteen-year-old Don Galloway sat in the cafeteria of Vancouver City College with his friends, chatting and having a good time.

Music and laughter intertwine, composing a symphony of glee as residents chat, sing, dance, and paint. This is the memory care section of Muskoka Shores Care Community in Gravenhurst, where each month Nancy Hunter comes in to paint with the residents.