Live Event: MorningStar of Kirkland, WA, with Lolly Bruschere

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Welcome to the answers for elders radio show. meet the trusted experts who will give you straight answers and I will help guide you on the path of later life care. Now here’s your host, founder, caregiver and CEO, Susanne Newman, and welcome everyone back to answers for elders radio network. And again we are yet a live event in morning star senior living, independent living community, brand new in Kirkland, Washington. And for those of you that are listening on the radio, we will be having these interviews on youtube so you can kind of see this beautiful community in the background and, of course, um as we’ve been visiting this hour. It’s very exciting to kind of see the activity that’s happening in the community and all the happy faces people are walking by, and part of the people that are responsible for all of that happiness is this one ful lady that is sitting with me right now today, this Lolli Burssour. Did I say it right? LOLLY and lolly? You are the concierge or the what do you like? The front line? I’m the first the first place that people see when they walk in. So it’s like a a concert or just similar to what you would find in a hotel or in a similar similar I answer a lot of questions. I answered the phone. I agree people as they come in. That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful, and you know, this is this is an amazing part about living in a community like this, Lolli, because obviously you know you’re here to be spoiled, right you? You’re here so that everybody makes sure that you have a good time and that there’s a wonderful surprise for you of joy every single day, as you’re in a community, and of course you’re partly responsible for that. So tell us a little bit about, lolly, how to to become part of this organization and and be a part of morning star. Yeah, can I look at that dot up there? You sure, kid. You know what I um, I was looking for an opportunity to serve in some sort of uh, spiritual and or Christian community. Um, and typically I veered towards churches, but I just decided to type into the search engine anything to do with like ministry, Church missions, those kinds of things, and so I got kind of a broad range of answers and one of the names that popped up was morning star and I had just been reading scripture in the Bible over the last couple of weeks before that and and you know, it was referencing the morning star, and so I saw the name and it sort of hit me really fast and I decided to investigate and uh, yeah, here I am, here, you are well, and it’s it’s so nice to have a community like this in Kirkland. I think one of the things that people think of, quote unquote, senior living. They’re like people that are not active. There are people that sit around all day that may have health challenges or whatever, but this is a wonderful way to lift yourself of all the burdens of, you know, living in your home and the maintenance issues and the house cleaning and the property taxes and all these things that can burden um those of us that are seniors, and I now count myself as one of them. It starts to wear on you. After all, you don’t want to, you know, mow the lawn every week. You don’t want to do those kind of things. And of course, a nice community like this there’s all kinds of things to do and you kind of help make that happen. So tell us a little bit about when you live here. Um, the lifestyle, what happened? What goes on? I I think the first thing that comes to mind is quality of life. So everything that I think a person probably should have available to them to really enjoy living is right here in this building. Like they don’t really have to leave, maybe to go grocery shopping if they want, but even the food is provided. Fred Restaurant, I know we have and and it’s just it’s an amazing like a world right inside a building. You’ve got your theater, your chapel, your your dining hall. You’ve got a dining area and what it looks like a treehouse’s genius. Um. We have a pool, we have a gym, we have what else do we have? We have everything. It’s a Bistro right here. There’s a piano behind me. So, Dude, yes, I love the Grand Piano and and certainly and certainly to come to this community. I came to your open house and I remember walking in here thinking, oh my goodness, how beautiful it’s. So all the architecture is really northwest contemporary. It’s very Um, you know, warm, inviting, but at the same time it’s modern and it’s and it’s lively and it’s it’s so incredibly fun and of course I know you guys do things like social hour and different kinds of things, and we are where we are sitting right now is in your Bistro. Tell us what goes on in the BISTRO. Do you know on Saturdays they do all kinds of little activities. They do games or games cards, but they also they even do ted talks. So every now and then across the hall I can hear Ted Talks going on. Um and then, of course, every now and then somebody will say, could you go play the piano really quick? So I’ll play the piano. It’s really but it’s creative use for the B stroy. Absolutely absolutely. You know, people can come in here. I just walked in and they’re doing Um, we’re here recording in early August and we’ve been having a heat wave and here we’ve got ice cream sandwich day, so everybody can have ice cream or I probably wait, you know, five hundred pounds of five. So there’s just so much. It’s like being super generally US lovely. So you talked a little bit about your why you went to work from morning start. Tell and I know enough about the community the organization as a whole. I love how much of an a desire and I mission it is from morning start to give back Um, and of course you have your foundation, which we’ve talked to John yegger about and different things like that. Tell us a little bit about how you fit into that picture. My fitting in UH kind of sums up with a love of relationship. So I’m very family centric and that, to me, is the epitome of what an independent community should look like, because we’ve got the coming and going at will, but we also have the returning to home and the people that we live around constantly, day in and day and that’s something that I have a passion for, having worked in churches most of my life, people coming in and going, constantly returning now, so you can, you can continue to grow those relationships and that’s something that I love and that’s something that drew me to my start. It’s been great. The voices in the Hallway, I recognize them, I know I know where they live and I can see them anytime I want when on my ship. Yeah, it’s a wonderful yeah, it’s just like I you know, like I remember when I first was introduced to morning start. One of the things that people, the community relations person said to me was the fact that we treat people here like, once they’ve moved in, their family and what you do for your family. There isn’t anything you don’t do for family if they want something, and I think that’s the true the warmth, the desire and the compassion that everybody has. As we’ve been through some dark times with the pandemic and a lot of times people are craving connection and they want to have people come forward and things like that. So I am so thrilled to see you know how you come together. So, in talking about the culture, how do you see mornings start kind of weaving its way into our community and the into the Pacific Northwest Seattle community, because you’re fairly new organization to this area? Yes, as an independent for sure, what I feel is like, from my limited knowledge, is that we enable people to enjoy the community uh by being in a really great location. They still can do things at home. That makes it simple and easy to reach. Like you’re if you don’t want to go out to a public you know pool, you’ve got your own pool, but at the same time you can you can put them on a daily or like a weekly route to a place like love and worth or give me other names, but I mean it makes us accessible and they can get out easily and enjoy the area and we have a lot to offer in this neck of the woods. Yeah, we really do. And I think also it really gives a sense of camaraderie and committic connection. Um, and and I also was as I walked in, I saw dog biscuits sitting on the counter. So I’m sure you have residents to have pets with them. Absolutely. Um. What kind of pets do you like? Dogs and cats, and mostly dogs, but one of them is this adorable like foodle. We call him UGGY, and he takes her for a walk like that’s a fabulous environment for pets to you know, safe neighborhood as well. Yeah, the crops are right across from us. Just saying. Well, and it’s great because the location is everything. If you’re in Um, in the Kirkland area, you have the amazing things. As far as Red Meyer very close, you’re right off of four or five, like one minute off of four or five pins. Yes, and of course, just right across the freeway you’ve got whole foods you’ve got all kinds of areas, stars, you know, restaurants, JFC, all kinds of stuff around here. So the total areas, and it’s growing as well. Yes, and isn’t there? Yeah, I think there’s even like a transportation and they’re creating a walking bridge, like they’re just creating all kinds of it’s easier for people to move around. Yeah, yeah, so we have um basically, I guess, in a nutshell, I know that morning star is a faith based organization. Explained to me with that, I think we put our faith and and our humanity, our ethic first. So if God commanded us to love each other and to love our neighbor, that’s what we get to practice here at Morning Star. I think that’s why it’s so important to be faith based. So that’s that’s Christianity. That’s best really, especially for me personally. It’s a personal thing, and so that we have practice living that out here in a place where we all live look together. That’s great. That’s great and of course, obviously part of that is honoring all people come in. So Um. You know, if you’re listening and you’re maybe not of the Christian um inclined, you’re still welcome in a community like this, and so I think that’s one of the things I want to make sure our love to all absolutely so. In the meantime, if I you know, lolly, I want to just say thank you for what you do and thank you for so much for being there for our seniors and as they come to the next chapter of, you know, joy in their life and you’re a big part of that. So how do if someone’s interested in checking you out on how do we reach you? There are a couple of ways. We have our phone number, which is four to five nine seven, nine five six, two six, and our website, which is morning senior, morning stars senior living. Right, Morning Star Senior Living Dot Com. Perfect, morning morning star Kirkland as well. But yeah, yeah, you could Google Morning Star Kirkland or just go to morning stars senior living Dot Com. And again, that number to our listeners is four to five nine seven, nine five six, two six, and we look forward to seeing you here in Kirkland very soon. Thank you, molly, for being on the show. My pleasure. We at answers for elders. Thank you for listening. Did you know that you can discover hundreds of podcasts in our library on senior care. So visit our website and discover our decision guides that will help you also navigate decision making. Find US AT ANSWERS FOR ELDERS DOT COM.