Rose Villa’s diversity celebrated on OPB news

We’re excited to report that two of our residents – and Rose Villa – were recently featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting! In a piece on retirement options for gay and lesbian seniors, reporter Chris Lehman talked with Rose Villa residents Pat Matthews, Carol Bosworth, Rod Dolan and Michael Stotts, highlighting our community’s strong tradition of diversity.

“[Another community we visited] didn’t say we couldn’t come,” Matthews says. “But they said that we would best off there if we were sisters…

…When the pair told their story to Rose Villa CEO Vassar Byrd, she said “I couldn’t believe that in this day and age that that would happen. I was absolutely shocked beyond belief.” Byrd not only welcomed the couple but she set about making sure Rose Villa was as hospitable as possible.

Thanks, OPB News! For more, and to listen to the full on-air report, click the link below.

Win dinner and help us celebrate our new website!

Boy, things look a little different around here all of a sudden: welcome to our new website!

In keeping with the active lifestyle here at Rose Villa, we’ve been busy improving our site so it’s even easier to read and get around. But we’ve also added new features like a new virtual tour of our community, our new Rose Villa blog, and a spiffy interactive campus map. And there’s more to come: look for an even richer Rose Villa community experience online in the coming months. Let us know what you think!

To help us celebrate the launch of our new site, we’ve got a little online treasure hunt going: answer three questions by February 3rd and we’ll enter you in a drawing for dinner on us! Click “tell me more” to see the three questions, the answers to which are sprinkled around rosevilla.org in plain sight… and good luck!

Building Bridges with Music

In a time when many public elementary schools music programs are being cut back or eliminated, Rose Villa has partnered with Riverside Elementary School to help students get to experience the world of music. Instructed by Priscilla Lightbourne, a 4th grade teacher at Riverside Elementary and aided by a grant from Berklee College, Rose Villa residents and her students are learning to play a variety of percussion instruments and having a FUN time to boot!

Saving the Planet, One Non-Profit at a Time…

At Rose Villa, we believe in supporting non-profits that are committed to improving their communities without sacrificing sustainability. That’s why we are always looking for good partners, and continuously evaluating our own space needs and processes.

In pursuit of those goals, we recently decided to decommission our on-site paint shop. You can imagine how much paint and paint materials have been accumulated over the years to take care of 22 acres of buildings! The paint was sorted and we decided to store of some of it in a smaller, more appropriate space, but the rest? That’s where it really gets interesting …