Phone • 763.712.8363 | Fax • 763.323.4811
About Us
Generally, when you think of assisted living you think of the elderly. However, Whispering Pines Assisted Living Inc., in Anoka, serves a wide range of clients with a wide range of needs and ages.
Whispering Pines is a grassroots family company that felt its own family members deserved a home-like atmosphere where their needs could be met and still had the freedom to be individuals.
How it Started
“The focus here is for our clients to feel comfortable, and we do that by creating a family environment,” Jake said.
Jake took over Whispering Pines in 2004, which was started by his grandparents in 1995, who started the business to help take care of their parents. In the beginning, it was an adult foster care business. Then, in 1998, Whispering Pines took on the assisted living license.
Today Jake continues the family tradition of providing care and assistance to people, in a respectful, dignified, and independent lifestyle in a home-like environment—just the way his grandparents ran the company.
Whispering Pines Community
Whispering Pines is growing with the community needs and the needs of our clients.
Currently, Whispering Pines has eight houses: The Pines, The Elms, The Oaks, The Maples, The Cedars, and The Willows, all located on Seventh Avenue in Anoka. Our newest, Cypress Manor & Lake Cottage is located in Andover.
Residents living in Whispering Pines homes are those who can’t live independently but are still too independent for a nursing home.
Because our residents need some help, there are nurses on site Monday through Friday during business hours and on call during the evenings and weekends.
Doctors & Nursing Staff
Our nursing staff is responsible for setting up and distributing all medications, making medical appointments and follow-ups, setting up transportation to appointments, client assessments and other duties as needed.
In addition to the nurses, Whispering Pines has a 24-hour home health aide care employee on site. Our home health aides are specially trained to offer assistance with medications, bathing, dressing, and grooming, as well as redirection, supervision, and encouragement.
All of our nurses and health aide care workers are employees of Whispering Pines. We do not use the pool or temporary employees.
Blue Stone Physicians provide in-home doctor visits and care for all residents at their request. In the very near future, we plan to have a psychiatrist that makes house calls to clients as needed. This is a tremendous benefit to all our clients, but especially for those who have a harder time, especially in the winter.
Activities Coordinator
We also have two full-time activities coordinators and four activities helpers. Weekly activities include crafts, bingo, exercise programs, shopping trips, outings to the zoo, concerts, movies, hay rides, bowling, picnics, luaus, along with outings to the Coon Rapids dam and trips to the county fair. (Last year we had several clients that entered items in the county fair and several won ribbons).
If our activity program does not offer something of particular interest to an individual, we will help them access other programs in the community.
Both of our activities coordinators meet with each client to assess what their interests are and what activities would be appropriate for them.
Dining
Whispering Pines is family, we encourage family-style eating. This enables a new person to get acquainted easier with other residents. When they are all together they share stories, laugh and engage in socialization, which is good for everyone.
“Usually we find that when one of our younger residents talks about something new in their lives, our seniors then share a story,” said Jake. “This intergenerational dining encourages a lot of conversation.”
We are open to flexible dining options. We do provide healthy, nutritious meals three times a day, laundry services and housekeeping for all of our residents.
Living Accommodations
Whispering Pines does not have individual apartments. Instead, residents have their own room or they share a room. Bathrooms are also shared, there are three to four bathrooms per house, and common areas.
“One good feature is that there are not a lot of clients in a house, and therefore things are less intimidating,” Jake said.
There are no more than 10 residents in each house. And, each house has common sitting areas and television areas, so residents can always find a quiet area, or find an area to have conversations.
Personal Items
Clients are encouraged to bring pictures and memorabilia from home to personalize their rooms and make them feel more like home.
Whispering Pines is a unique facility and because of its size, we feel we can offer special attention to our clients. We would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Professional care in a family-like environment since 1995.