CHL Mississippi RiverKings

RiverKings play in tournament to benefit adult day care

August 19, 2004 - Central Hockey League (CHL)
Mississippi RiverKings News Release


The RiverKings will participate in the fourth annual "Willard Ewing Memorial Golf Classic" to benefit the Page Robbins Adult Day Care Center on Thursday, Aug. 26 at the Windyke Country Club in Memphis, presented by Parker Hannifin Automotive.

Cost to play is $125 per person and $500 per foursome and includes greens fee, cart, open driving range, catered lunch and goodie bag sponsored by Nike, Inc. Lunch and registration will be at 11 a.m., with shotgun start at 1 p.m.

The non-profit Page Robbins Adult Day Care Center helps families care for loved ones with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, which can result from a variety of things such as stroke, Huntington's or Parkinson's disease.

"Many people don't understand what adult day care is," said Karen Absalom, center director. "It's not just babysitting. You don't just drop them off at the door where someone watches them all day. We have art therapy classes, music therapy, field trips—we want their coming here to be a time in which they can invest of themselves, to fully live out these moments before the disease takes over."

The Day Care Center began in 1995 when a group of people in Collierville realized they needed help caring for their loved ones, a man named Willard Ewing among them. Ewing's wife had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. As a victim of Alzheimer's, she could not be left by herself any longer.

Out of this need came Collierville Alzheimer's Services, Inc., which was housed in the fellowship hall of Collierville Christian Church. The agency grew to serve people not only from Collierville, but also Germantown, East Memphis, Cordova, North Mississippi and Fayette County.

In 1997, the state of Tennessee started to institute and enforce licenses and codes for centers like the Collierville one. Without a commercial kitchen and other such commodities, the Center was forced to move.

Upon his death during this period, Ewing donated his Burrows home on the Windyke golf course to the center. Ewing's donation gave the agency the seed money to build a 9,200 square foot building on Houston Levee Rd. Center supporter David Halle donated the 2-acre parcel of land for the building, and it opened last year. The facility was christened the Page Robbins Adult Day Care Center in honor of Halle's grandmother, who suffered from Alzheimer's.

Absalom said that the center can accommodate between 40 and 45 dementia sufferers. They are separated according to the level of dementia they suffer. Fees for the Center are based on levels of care, from Level I to Level VI, Level VI being pre-nursing home care.

"I tell caregivers that the decision to put someone in a 24-hour facility should be based on the 16 hours the family member is not with us, and the effect that time has on the caregiver's physical and mental health," said Absalom, who has worked all her professional life in geriatric nursing before coming to the center, and whose own mother died of Alzheimer's disease.

"Sixty-five percent of caregivers pass away before the person with the disease does. Caregivers are so isolated. They don't get out much because they can't leave the person alone—not even to get groceries or mow the lawn—unless they've got some relief and respite care."

All proceeds from the tournament will go to offset the Page Robbins Adult Day Care Center's operating expenses. Deadline to respond is Friday, Aug. 20. For more information or to play, call the center at 901-854-5726.



Central Hockey League Stories from August 19, 2004


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