Bradham Enterprises opens new facility in Merigold
By Jennifer Minyard, The Bolivar Bullet
Will Bradham, owner of Bradham Enterprises, will realize a dream more than a decade in the making on March 25 with the opening of Pinnacle Adult Day Services at 1138 Township Road in Merigold.
“Pinnacle is an adult daycare essentially,” he said. “And we’re actually branding it as an adult day service. I started the process on it and wrote the business plan for it back in 2013 and just kind of kept getting sidetracked, you know, something new would pop up or life or something else. But we’ve seen a great need for it, so we finally pulled the trigger and bought a building last year and started doing remodeling and rehab and getting it up to all the specifications and requirements that the state has.”
Bradham also runs a non-medical home care company. Through his experiences with both his home care business and working through his father’s illness, he realized that an adult day care service was greatly needed in the community.
“Essentially my home care company takes care of these people throughout the day — getting them up, getting them a shower, getting them dressed, fixing a meal, changing linens, keeping the house clean, things like that,” said Bradham. “The adult daycare kind of steps in after that if they choose to go. What it mainly does is it offers them some socialization aspect. So, if they’re being taken care of at home they really only get to be around a handful of people, in most cases one. And so, we know that people respond better when they are taken care of at home, but we also know people respond great when they have a community,” he said. “So, with us being able to bring them to Pinnacle, they’re going to get activities, they’re going to get socialization, they’re going to get another hot meal every day. It’s just a chance to be around their peers for the day and that’s going to be available Monday through Friday, every week of the year.”
“From seeing what we’re capable of doing with my home care company and how much it helps people, we just knew that this was an add on that would be very beneficial. And I’ve seen some adult daycares and I know we can do it better and I think those people deserve better,” he said. “When I started researching that I saw a great need for it and, you know, whether we like it or not, if you get older and you’re still with us, you’re going to need help at some stage in life. I saw a big need for that and probably one of the main reasons was we had to have that type of service with my father when he was battling lung cancer and eventually died from it, but we kept him at home and we wouldn’t have been able to do that if we didn’t have home care assistance at the house to help out with it. It would have been impossible.”
Along with various activities, Pinnacle will also have transportation available for interested clients who need it.
“A lot of this is Medicaid funded so it goes to the Medicaid waiver A and D programs, and we are required to have transportation,” he said. “So, we have three shuttles that are all handicap accessible. We also have four additional support vehicles that are smaller vans, things like that. We can provide transportation if necessary or if they’re able to drive themselves or they have a ride there, then, you know, that’s perfectly acceptable as well.”
Anyone is welcome to sign up to attend but space is limited.
“Right now, we have a space limit of 35,” said Bradham. “We can take Medicaid, but we can take private duty as well, which means if, you know, somebody has got a parent that they want to pay to have them come up there then that’s great. If they’re on Medicaid, they have to be approved through the Medicaid waiver program. And then the paperwork has to be sent over to us and then we’ll establish when they’ll start. But if it’s private duty they would just contact our office and set up days that they would like to come and how they’re going to pay.”
When the doors open on March 25, Bradham expects to have about 20 people enrolled.
“As of right now we’ve got about 20 that are interested and will be coming that Monday,” said Bradham.
“We’ll be offering a little bit of everything. We understand that some people may just want to come here and watch their favorite TV program or watch a movie and we’ve got wireless headsets for them to be able to do that and not disturb everybody else. We’ve got two little den areas set up so it’s comfortable. It’s kind of like home and we also will have everything from art classes to physical fitness courses.
“We’re going to have an outdoor raised garden that will be accessible for anybody, even if they’re wheelchair bound,” he said. “We’re going to have a chicken coop. So, if they want to garden while they’re there or help out with the chickens then that’s great. We’re obviously going to be doing some field trips here and there, taking them to different facilities and museums and things like that. I’m planning on having somebody come in. We will have a couple of authors and musicians. We’re going to have a lot of assistance from local area schools and the college because a lot of these kids have got to get volunteer hours. We’re going to be looking for all kind of things for them to be able to do, but we’re going to keep them active so we’re going to have something, we’re going to have activities every single day.”