Green Acres Foundation celebrates 65 years

Posted on March 27, 2025 by Sunny South News

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Southern Alberta Newspapers

Green Acres Foundation will be celebrating its 65th business anniversary next month, which means the foundation is now old enough to move into one of its residences.

“On Apr. 11, 1960, Green Acres Foundation came into existence,” says Dawna Coslovi, Green Acres. “We were one of a few foundations in the province that came into existence that year.”

She explains that this was a result of a provincial government initiative to meet the needs of seniors in the province who needed an affordable place to live and could no longer live in their homes, but who were also not in need of a long-term care or a hospital bed.

“Back then, they asked municipalities if they were interested in this new thing called a seniors lodge in their municipality,” says Coslovi. “In order to do this, municipalities had to agree and also donate land to the province.”

At the time, four municipalities came together, which including the City of Lethbridge, Lethbridge County, and the towns of Coaldale and Nobleford, and agreed to have a seniors lodge program.

“So, the city donated some land, actually right here where Pemmican Lodge is now, and the government said, ‘okay, we will build a seniors lodge,’” says Coslovi. “So they built the original lodge that was called Green Acres Lodge.”

When it comes to celebrating their big milestone, Coslovi says everyone is excited to be able to celebrate this year, since the previous milestone of 60 years came during the Covid-19 pandemic, and celebrations were restricted to each individual lodge.

“This time we really want to celebrate with the community as we are proud to have provided our services for seniors in this area for 65 years,” says Coslovi.

Green Acres continues to house and care for approximately 1,000 Lethbridge seniors in 16 buildings across the city and employs some 400 staff members. It also runs residence in Picture Butte, Coaldale and Barons.

Coslovi has served as CEO for 29 of the 65 years since the Green Acres Foundation began operations, and she says it has been great to see the foundation’s growth throughout her time there.

“Some of the highlights include us being, I believe, the first bodies in the province to arrange a partnership with the Chinook Health Region, now known as Alberta Health Services, way back in 1999,” she says.

Thanks to that partnership, Green Acres has hired health care aides (HCA) for those seniors who needed a little bit of extra help in order to live on their own.

“Normally those seniors would have needed to go into a long-term care facility,” says Coslovi. “But we were able to keep them in their community because we had the HCAs.”

Due to the success of having HCAs on site,Green Acres reached even higher and, again in partnership with CHR, in 2004 they were able to hire licensed practical nurses (LPN) into their site in addition to the HCAs.

“That was when the hospital was closing in Picture Butte and they had a long-term care section there, so we built a building out there attached to our lodge where we had LPNs and HCAs and were able to transfer the seniors that were in the long-term care facility to our building, so they didn’t have to leave their community,” says Coslovi.

The foundation did the same in Coaldale. Coslovi says she’s very proud of expanding capacity outside of the city because people want to be able to age in their home community, and Green Acres can provide them with the opportunity to do just that.

Another highlight Coslovi experienced in her decades with GAF is the growth of the foundation itself, as it has expanded to the point of almost doubling in size. Improvements and expansion in care continue to be ongoing as well.

“The other thing we are very proud is in partnership with the Lethbridge Elder Abuse Resource Network (LEARN), we were able to provide safe suites and now that program is being done throughout the province,” says Coslovi. The Safe Suite program provides safe accommodations within Green Acres Foundation lodge communities for seniors experiencing or at risk of experiencing some sort of abuse. The foundation was recognized with the Minister’s Senior Service Award for its work.

Another innovative program that started in Lethbridge before expanding to the rest of the province is Designated Supportive Living. A pilot project with CHR, its facilities were designed to offer a level of care above that needed by seniors in a lodge, but less than the hospital-like care needed by residents of long-term facilities.

Looking toward the future, Coslovi says Green Acres will continue to focus on measured growth.

“We need to make sure that we’re expanding in areas that we know there is a need for,” she says. “We are working on a couple new apartment buildings that we are just in the planning stage now.”