SUMMER 2006
Tom Smith
Director of Institutional Advancement
his year Friends Village will celebrate one hundred nine years of quality Quaker caring, a tremendous accomplishment in the healthcare industry. In fact, there are not many businesses in any industry that have the adaptability and perseverance that Friends Village possesses. Guided by our core values of Quaker beliefs, our mission has not changed. Nor has our vision of providing the best possible care at the highest possible level of independence for our residents.
The idea began in September 1897 when Friends Boarding Home was incorporated as a nonprofit organization under the care of the Salem Quarterly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Our doors officially opened on November 15, 1897, with four boarders, two caretakers and a matron. The boarders paid just $3 per week.
Over the years, Friends Boarding Home expanded several times. In 1905 a brick house in the center of Woodstown was purchased due to the need for greater space. In 1911 another expansion included the addition of an operating room and a kitchen. During this time the sick were separated from the boarding aged, thus creating The Infirmary and The Home. Services expanded to include maternity care in 1914. (Did you know that one of the babies delivered in the Friends Maternity now lives in our independent living apartments?) By the end of the decade, regulations from the state increased, forcing the maternity and infirmary to close, leaving only boarding for the aged.
In the early 1970s, new federal codes governing long term care facilities made Friends Boarding Home obsolete. Rather than abandoning the program for the aging, Salem Quarterly Meeting raised the funds to build a new complex. Our new building and new name, Friends Home at Woodstown, opened at its present location in 1976 with sixty residential rooms and forty two nursing rooms. Eighteen additional nursing beds were added in 1979.
In the mid-1980s, our Board of Managers established Woods Court. These eight one bedroom apartments operate under a separate corporation with their own board. An independent living option, Woods Court enjoys autonomy from Friends Home while their residents are welcome to join the various activities offered at Friends Home.
To ensure the mission and viability of Friends Home, our Board of Managers initiated a long range, strategic planning process. From the discovery of apparent needs of older adults in Salem County, the Board developed a vision to turn Friends Home into a life care facility that could offer older adults all of the programs they will require as their need for assistance increases. The Village project was developed to establish Friends Home as a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC).
The Board of Managers felt that the expansion necessitated the changing of our name to incorporate the current and new living options into a single community. Friends Home, in January 2005, became Friends Village at Woodstown and held its Grand Opening Celebration and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on September 22, 2005. Our expansion project now complete, Friends Village features forty seven independent living cottages, twenty independent living apartments, forty five assisted living suites with twenty specially designated for Alzheimer's and Dementia Care, a sixty bed Residential Healthcare Unit, an expanded sixty bed Skilled Nursing Unit and a new Commons Building to serve as a central point of services on campus.
As Friends Village continues to expand into the future, the individual needs of each resident we serve are of highest importance to us, as they have been since our beginning. I hope you have enjoyed this stroll down memory lane. You are welcome to come have lunch and take a tour of our community. Please call Tom or Aimee at (856)769 9000 and we will be glad to serve you.
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Last modified:
Monday, May 08, 2006 at 07:24 PM
