Rona Barrett Foundation – Non-Profit of the Week

The Rona Barrett Foundation has been featured on Edhat, a local community website focusing on the Central Coast, as Non-profit of the Week!!

The Rona Barrett Foundation
updated: Jul 09, 2011, 8:45 AM

The Rona Barrett Foundation is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to helping seniors in need around the country and right here in Santa Barbara County.

Pioneering entertainment journalist “Miss Rona” was inspired to create the Foundation after caring for her own father as he aged and after hearing about colleagues who found themselves without anyone to look after them.

Today’s seniors and caregivers are faced with tough decisions and challenges that affect their safety, well-being, and dignity. The Foundation is committed to being an advocate for these seniors to ensure they can age in comfort.

One of the major gaps for our country’s aging population is the lack of affordable housing, assisted living, daycare centers, and other services that can meet the basic needs of low-income seniors to ensure they receive the care they require – and deserve.

The next step for the Rona Barrett Foundation is “The Golden Inn and Cottages”, a new model for senior housing. The goal of the Foundation is to develop a pilot facility right here in Santa Barbara County: “The Golden Inn and Cottages” will serve as a model for other communities across the country.

This innovative concept brings together affordable housing for independent “orphaned seniors,” and others, an adult day care center with longer working hours, so caregivers can have more respite time, staff housing and children’s daycare in a community centered model. It will serve as an inclusive care center to provide low-income seniors the independent and assisted living services they need and deserve.

Services are designed with both seniors and their families in mind, to ensure they are able to stay engaged in the community while receiving necessary care. With humble beginnings as a grocer’s daughter in Queens, New York, Rona Barrett was diagnosed with a rare muscular disorder and only given a few years to live. Yet in spite of these obstacles, she became America’s first entertainment industry journalist covering and uncovering the most intriguing celebrity stories from Hollywood including sports figures and political leaders. To get involved, Rona asks the community to:

o Support The Rona Barrett Foundation to create The Golden Inn and Cottages
o Become a “Rona’s Warrior” by volunteering at a senior care community
o Join Rona on Facebook and Twitter
o Let friends and colleagues in other communities know about Rona’s One

Woman Show, “Nothing But The Truth,” a star-filled journey along her path to top television commentator, entertainment journalist and publisher. The production is offered as a joint fundraiser to like-minded organizations to support services, advocacy, and awareness.

Rona Barrett Foundation Mission Statement: “The Rona Barrett Foundation is committed to providing affordable housing for the aging in need in a community centered model.”