HN
Halina Novrup
Executive Director · since 2011Runs the building and signs every fee letter personally. Came from twelve years in community nursing and still covers a Sunday shift most months. Walks tours herself when she is in.
Willowbend A week at Willowbend
01/Monday to Sunday, as it runs
A week, not a brochure.
Nothing on this page is compulsory and nothing on it is aspirational. It is the programme as it ran last week, the food as the kitchen actually cooks it, and the four people you will deal with most. If you visit on a Tuesday you can check every line of it yourself.
Best day to visit: Tuesday — the building is most itself between 10:15 and lunch
One dining room · one seating · 1:6 daytime staffing · 61 people employed
02/The seven-day programme
What is on, and when.
Mornings are fixed because familiarity is part of the care — breakfast at 07:30, nurse rounds at 09:00, movement at 10:15 three days a week. Afternoons rotate. Marguerite posts the coming week on the dining-room door each Sunday.
Monday
- Movement classSeated or standing, sunroom
- Gardening clubFour raised beds, greenhouse in winter
- TeaCrossword done aloud, badly
Tuesday
- Hairdresser visitsBooked at the desk, charged separately
- Bus to MontpelierShops and the library, back by 16:30
- TeaChess board stays out
Wednesday
- Movement classSunroom
- The Wednesday filmChosen by rota; subtitles always on
- Evening cardsResident-run, no staff involved
Thursday
- Visiting choirTwice monthly, veranda in summer
- Writing groupLetters, memoir, and the newsletter
- TeaWell attended, unstructured
Friday
- Movement classSunroom
- Visiting animalsTwice a month, Hollow Wing included
- Supper, families welcomeTell the kitchen by 15:00
Saturday
- Late breakfastKitchen holds service to 10:30
- Grounds walkThe half-mile loop, staff-accompanied
- Family dayBusiest visiting day of the week
Sunday
- Chapel serviceOptional, in the west lounge
- Sunday lunchThe one meal families most often stay for
- Next week postedOn the dining-room door
03/A Tuesday, start to finish
One day, hour by hour.
The shape of every day, whichever level of care you are at. Everyone eats in the same room at the same time — there is no separate dining hall for memory care and no tray service unless someone is unwell.
Breakfast opens
Served until 09:30. Eggs cooked to order; the kitchen keeps a note of how you take them.
Nurse rounds
Medication and check-ins, apartment by apartment, in the same order every morning.
Movement class
Seated or standing, in the sunroom. Led by Marguerite, our activities lead, three mornings a week.
Lunch, one seating
Everyone eats together. Two mains, one always vegetarian, plus whatever came out of the kitchen garden.
Afternoon programme
Rotating: the Wednesday film, a bus to Montpelier, the gardening club, or the Thursday visiting choir.
Tea in the sunroom
Unstructured and well-attended. Chess board stays out; the crossword is done aloud, badly.
Supper
Lighter than lunch. Families are welcome any evening — tell the kitchen by 15:00 and they will lay a place.
Night staff take over
Two nurses awake through the night, plus four care staff. The building never goes unattended.
04/One kitchen, one room
Everybody eats in the same room.
Chef Dahlia Røste has run the kitchen since 2016 and buys from four farms inside twenty miles. Two mains at every lunch, one always vegetarian. Soft and modified-texture diets are cooked to the same recipes as everyone else's, not blended separately — which is rarer than it should be.
How the kitchen runs
One kitchen, one seating, no separate service for any level of care. A dietitian reviews the menus each quarter and the residents' committee reviews them rather more often than that.
- Three meals daily, one seating
- Four farms inside twenty miles
- Kitchen garden, four raised beds
- Family places, notice by 15:00
- Dietitian review each quarter
The grounds
Nine acres, with a half-mile loop path that is level, lit and gritted in winter — the single most-used amenity we have, by a distance.
- Half-mile level walking loop
- Secured garden, Hollow Wing
- Greenhouse and potting shed
- Two covered verandas
05/The staffing, published
1:6Daytime carer to resident ratio, whole building
1:4Daytime ratio inside the Hollow Wing
1:14Overnight, with two licensed nurses awake
61People employed across the community
We publish these because they are the number that actually determines a day, and because almost nobody does. Ask any community you tour for the same four figures — daytime, overnight, memory care, and total headcount. If the answer is a brochure adjective rather than a ratio, that is your answer.
06/Who you will actually meet
Four names worth knowing.
Willowbend employs 61 people. These four are the ones families deal with most, and all four have been here longer than five years — which in this sector is the statistic that matters most and is quoted least.
ES
Dr. Emeka Sowande
Clinical Director · Registered Nurse, MSNA gerontological nurse practitioner by training. Writes every care plan, reviews each one at ninety days, and chairs the family meeting. Will tell you what a diagnosis actually means in ordinary words.
MB
Marguerite Boisvert
Activities Lead · since 2014Runs the movement class, the gardening club and the Wednesday film. Keeps a notebook of what every resident used to do for work, which is how the writing group and the chess ladder both started.
DR
Dahlia Røste
Head Chef · since 2016Buys from four farms within twenty miles. Cooks modified-texture meals to the same recipes as everyone else's, and comes out of the kitchen at the end of Sunday lunch to hear about it.
Care staff
Thirty-eight carers across three shifts. Every one of them is assigned to the same floor week to week, because a resident with dementia should not be meeting a stranger at seven in the morning.
- Dementia-specific training, refreshed annually
- Same floor, same faces, week to week
- Hollow Wing carers do not cover other floors
Nursing
A licensed nurse is in the building every hour of every day — not on call from town, not a call button routed to an answering service. Overnight there are two, both awake.
- 24-hour on-site licensed nursing
- Two nurses awake overnight, never on call from home
- Medication reconciliation after any hospital stay
Kitchen, housekeeping and grounds
Nineteen people between them. They are named on the board by the dining room door, because residents deal with them daily and knowing a name is the whole point of a smaller place.
- Kitchen brigade of seven, including Dahlia
- Weekly housekeeping, linens and personal laundry
- The loop path gritted before 06:00 in winter
07/From the families
The people who chose it, on choosing it.
“We toured six places. Willowbend was the only one where the staff said hello to residents by name while we were walking past, rather than to us.”
Cathleen Ferraro
Daughter of a resident · Burlington · since 2023
“My mother joined the writing group in her second month, having not written anything since she retired. Marguerite had read her file and knew she had been a court reporter.”
Weston Ihejirika
Son of a resident · Montpelier · since 2021
“I ate lunch there before we decided. That sounds like nothing, but you learn more from one seating than from any tour — you can see who talks to whom.”
Rosalind Tapper
Niece and power of attorney · Barre · since 2022
09/Stay for lunch
Come on a Tuesday.
Visit at 10:15 and you will catch the movement class, the walk down to lunch and the one seating — which between them tell you more than any tour. Tell the kitchen by 15:00 the day before and they will lay two extra places.