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CNN Live Today

Grace Living Center in Jenks, Oklahoma is School and Nursing Home

Aired May 01, 2002 - 10:54   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: There is a youth movement, of sorts, at some American nursing homes. It's dubbed the "Eden alternative." It includes children, pets, and even plants, and it has been are brought in to chase away the gloom and the boredom that plague so many residents.

Our Kathy Slobogin found a place in Oklahoma that takes it a step further.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The children are arriving for school. And the ones they call the "grandmas and grandpas" are waiting for them. It's a typical day at the Grace Living Center in Jenks, Oklahoma.

It's a school and a nursing home, with 60 children between 4 and 5 years old, and 110 residents, whose average age is 85.

It all started two years ago when Don Greiner, owner of a string of nursing homes, saw a school playground across the street and thought it might be nice to bring children in to see the residents.

DON GREINER, OWNER, GRACE LIVING CENTER: I went and met with the Jenks public school people and we -- from there, the idea just escalated.

SLOBOGIN: Don Greiner thinks his nursing home is the only one in the country that actually contains a school. He put more than $200,000 into building classrooms, which he rents to the school district for $1 a year. But he also built bridges between young and old into the design. Classroom walls stop short of the ceiling, so residents can hear the children's voices. The residents' beauty parlor looks into the children's rooms. The playground was built with a track that accommodates tricycles and wheelchairs. There are joint activities that are good both for little fingers and for arthritic ones.

Every morning, the children have reading time with the residents.

GREINER: When you put elders and children together, there is a magic there. With children and elders, there is -- they don't have the veil that you and I might have. They have nothing to hide. They are not trying to be anything that they are not, and they're just such a gift to each other.

SLOBOGIN: Greiner believes one of the greatest gifts the children bring is simply their unpredictability, for those whose lives have become so predictable.

LEONA ALSIP, NURSING HOME RESIDENT: I don't want to move to any other nursing home; I've gotten acquainted with the children here. I just love all of them. I watch them play. And if you watch their little faces, there's something in their eyes and their little faces; that's what I like to watch.

I don't think there is one that I can't say is a friend to me, and that's what I like.

SLOBOGIN: As for the children, by the end of the first year, there was a waiting list to get into the school.

Greiner says it's not just the residents and children who benefit. The Grace Living Center has no problem with staff turnover, in an industry plagued with staffing shortages. He admits, not every nursing home operator can afford to do this, but to him, the payback outweighs the substantial cost.

GREINER: Can I point to where on the financial statement it's working? No. But am I being paid back? Absolutely.

SLOBOGIN: Judging from the number of smiles around the place, he's not the only one.

Kathy Slobogin, CNN, Jenks, Oklahoma.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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