Green Acres celebrates 62 years of service to seniors

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on April 12, 2022.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Green Acres Foundation CEO Dawna Coslovi visits with a resident of Garden View Lodge's during the Green Acres Foundation's 62nd anniversary celebration Monday at the Lodge's dining room.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The Green Acres Foundation is celebrating 62 years of caring for seniors in Lethbridge and surrounding areas.
“We are 62 years old as of April 11, 2022,” said Dawna Coslovi, CEO of Green Acres Foundation.
The celebration took place at the Garden View Lodge Monday, which opened in 1992. Coslovi said they chose the venue for the celebrations as they are able to accommodate a large crowd.
She said that in 1960 the provincial government of the time determined that there should be something for seniors where they could live and where they can get some services.
“Lethbridge was chosen as one of the very first places in the province to have a lodge and that’s the one that was over by the Galt Museum that is now replaced by Pemmican Lodge,” said Coslovi.
She said the name of the original lodge was Green Acres Lodge which opened in 1960 and operated until 1999 when it was replaced by Pemmican Lodge.
“Our plan today is just to celebrate our success for the last 62 years and to celebrate something good. I mean we have had a couple of years of being under a pandemic, but we also don’t want to lose sight of the fact that there is a wonderful thing that is happening to an organization like Green Acres to be in existence successfully for 62 years,” said Coslovi.
She said they started in 1960 with the Green Acres Lodge and three years later they opened up Golden Acres in the north side of the city.
“From there we just kept building and now we have over 300 employees throughout the foundation, which makes us a very large employer in Lethbridge, and we take care of around 950 to 1,000 seniors, depending if there are couples in an apartment,” said Coslovi.
During the celebration she thanked the staff for the preparations and thanked the residents by saying that without them the Foundation would not exist.
Mayor Blaine Hyggen was in attendance and he spoke to the residents and congratulated the foundation on their 62 years of service in the community.
“I wanted to get just a huge shout out to the organization Green Acres and on to Adrian’s team here, thank you so much for all the work that you do to create this atmosphere for all of these wonderful people,” said Hyggen.
He shared some information he found through research about Green Acres Foundation in 2021, where 627,435 meals have been served since then, 29,796 rooms are cleaned and they reached 1178 volunteer hours.
“This isn’t over, this is just 2021 last year, and over 36 languages are spoken by the staff. Isn’t that amazing? So that is just a great thank you very much for everything you do for our community,” said Hyggen.
When speaking to the Herald, Hyggen said that he has had the opportunity to visit with seniors and he was able to celebrate recently a 100th and 101st birthdays of senior residents that reside within the Green Acres Foundation.
“I just stay in touch with the community and its been something that I just love to do,” said Hyggen.
He said the city has a very large senior base and therefore it is great to have these facilities, and he looks forward to seeing more.

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