ChooseHome Helped us Plan Ahead

ChooseHome Members: Tom and Bev Baker

When the Bakers moved to Williamsburg, following decades of moving from state to state as a military family, Tom was 69 and Bev was 62.

“We recognized that we needed to be planning ahead,” Tom said. “I had a good friend who sat on the board of directors at Patriots Colony in Williamsburg and very soon I also became a member of the board. We thought that Patriots Colony would be our future as we aged, or got to a point where we couldn’t take care of ourselves.”

So Tom and Bev signed up, saying they would move into Patriots Colony when Tom turned 80. But when 80 arrived, they weren’t ready.

“We realized we wanted to stay in our home, together, as long as we could,” Tom said, jokingly adding that Bev was the most reluctant to leaving.

“This is home for our family,” Bev said, “and the size of it allows us to fit and bring the whole brood in, which we do every chance we get.”

When they learned about the ChooseHome program, the timing was perfect, Tom said.

“We like to joke that ChooseHome saved our marriage,” Bev said with a laugh. “ChooseHome was the perfect marriage for us” between wanting to stay home as long as they could and also getting the support they needed as they aged.

“The thing I feel very comfortable about is that ChooseHome is under the umbrella of Riverside,” said Tom. “If it hadn’t been backed by Riverside I’m not sure how anxious we would have been to sign up for the program.”