Zelma Lacey House Welcomes New Director

Now in her fourth week on the job, the Zelma Lacey House's new executive director Kristen Duggan is settling into her role and getting to know the residents and their families. The Melrose native said she feels right at home here in Charlestown and is eager to continue the assisted living community's tradition of offering comfort and independence to senior residents.

Patch sat down with Duggan recently to talk about her new job, her previous experience and the services offered at the Zelma Lacey House.

What did you do prior to coming to Zelma Lacey? I was the executive director at Traditions of Dedham. Prior to that I was the executive director at the Prospect House [in Revere], and prior to that I was the marketing director and business director at Atria Maplewood Place in Malden.

How did you get into this line of work? I was working at Harvard Business School and decided I wanted to be closer to home, and there was a business manager job right up the street from my house at Atria Maplewood Place. I thought: This will be easy. I’ve never worked harder in my life. But I’ve also never been so rewarded. The residents just make it worthwhile coming to work every day. And what you do to make their elderly years special, it’s really nice. It’s like a family. My daughter has been raised in assisted living communities. She loves to come in.

What services do you offer at the Zelma Lacey House? What’s really great about the Zelma Lacey House is it’s not tiny but it’s not huge. I’ve worked at different assisted livings. We’re only 66 apartments, so it’s very homey. It’s also reasonably priced. I’ve worked at other assisted livings and it’s out-of-reach for a lot of seniors. We’re not out-of-reach. To me, that’s huge. There’s nothing worse than when a family is looking and needing something right away, to not be able to help them. I feel that here we are able to help those residents but yet we have all the amenities.

We have a wonderful dining room with three meals a day and incredible food. We have an activity team that has activities going on for the residents here all day long. We have a wonderful care team who will help people with their daily living if they need assistance. We clean residents' apartments once a week for them, we do their laundry for them each week. It makes life easy.

You get people who say, well, I want to keep my mom at home. Well at home Mom is struggling to feed herself, she’s struggling to do the laundry, she's waiting for you to be her entertainment. But here when you come to visit Mom, you're really visiting her, because all of her needs are taken care of. And the staff that’s here genuinely loves the residents. They’re here for the right reasons.

How are the residential units set up? We have studio apartments and one-bedroom apartments. Each apartment has a stove top, refrigerator, freezer and microwave. But because we have three meals a day in the dining room all they really need to use the kitchen space for is snacks or tea or breakfast if they want it. We also have country kitchens that have iced water all the time and in the morning they have muffins or little breakfast setups for those who want to sleep in. And we always have coffee there.

Do you have any openings right now at Zelma Lacey? We usually have a couple notices at a time [when residents are leaving], so although we don’t have any vacancies, we know when some are becoming available. When people come to visit you know when something’s going to be available, so you just help them get into that next available apartment. Because we’re so small, we don’t have a lot of openings, but it’s a nice flow.

Are you working on anything new at Zelma Lacey? Right now I want to get to know all the people in Charlestown and I want to get to know all of my residents and their families. I’ve only been here such a short time but I haven’t really come up with anything that needs changing. It’s a well run building. It’s nice, the residents are very well taken care of, the activities are really good, so there’s not much I have to change. It’s just a matter of me getting acclimated and then just having some fun with these residents and their families, because that’s ultimately what it’s all about.

What are some activities you offer to residents? Today [March 14] we have Irish step dancers coming, and this weekend we’ll have the Dirty Water Band coming to entertain. We also have a beautiful patio; we’re hoping to work with the Berklee College of Music. At one of my [previous] buildings I worked with them and every Friday night they used to send a student to play for us outside, or inside if it rained. We’ve also had a gentleman who comes and does one-man plays, and there’s a woman who does a one-woman show, so we get a little bit of theater in. There are also occasional trips—a group of residents is going to Huntington Theater later this month. We also have a chapel here, and we invite the community to come for regular Mass. And we're always looking for volunteers to come in and do things with the residents.

What kind of volunteers do you need? I’ve seen where high schoolers have volunteered and they’ve done word searches or played games with the residents. At one of my places the vocational school paired up students with residents and the student would write their life history. I’ve had parents with their children who need to get service hours who come in to read to residents who have macular degeneration or who are blind. There are others who just come and spend time with residents. We can always find something for volunteers to do.

How can someone get more information about the Zelma Lacey House? They can call or come by or even come by and have lunch with us. I’d love for them to call me; I can answer any questions. I think sometimes people think that they can’t afford it or they think that their independence is going to get taken away. Ultimately our goal here is is to keep our residents independent. A lot of times people who are at home think they’re going to have their independence taken away but they actually don’t have any independence now because they’re stuck at home. At the Zelma Lacey House, they have all these choices. They actually get to start a new chapter in their life—one of choices and of comfort.

For more information about the Zelma Lacey House, visit zelmalaceyhouse.com or call 781-241-0328.