A parting gift for Kerikeri Village

Registered nurse Rachel Barbosa (front), healthcare assistant Shirl Liggett, registered nurse Toni Owen, assistant clinical manager Laura Roberts and healthcare assistant Bronwyn Pickery testing the beds destined for the care facility at Kerikeri Retirement Village. Photo / Supplied

Twelve new adjustable beds, together worth $40,000, are on order for the care facility at Kerikeri Retirement Village, where they will replace older beds, whose mechanisms are beginning to fail.

The beds will be paid for with part of a bequest made by Ronald (Ron) Grant, a former independent-living resident of the Village, who was admitted to the care facility shortly before his death last year.

Village chief executive Hilary Sumpter said the purchase would be a huge leap forward for the bed replenishment programme.

"This is a significant cost for any care facility, but it is, of course, essential, so we are deeply grateful to Ron and his estate," she said.

Grant had been a much-loved member of both the Village and the wider Kerikeri community, and his thoughtfulness in remembering the Village with a bequest was testament to the man he was.

Sumpter said the Village was a registered charitable company, and bequests were a vital source of funding.

"We are completely unlike the multinational, foreign-owned retirement villages that exist throughout New Zealand. We depend on heroes from our community, just like Ron Grant, for funding through bequests," she said.

"This community dreamed us. Then it built us. And now it sustains us through its support and generosity."