Ensure PCAC’s future in your will

PROM Country Aged Care has just launched its new Bequest Program and is asking the people of the Corner Inlet district to ensure PCAC’s future by remembering the community-based facility in their wills.

While PCAC does get annual Federal Government funding as well as the interest from residents’ bonds, the organisation depends a lot on the bequests, donations and money raised by community effort it also receives to help balance the books.

Now retired as a PCAC board of management member after 10 years of service, Joan Liley has accepted another role as the patron of the PCAC Guardians.

“Those generous people who choose to let us know that they have made a bequest to PCAC will be invited to join the Guardians, a group of benefactors with the common goal of securing the future of local aged care,” she said. 

“I commend the Prom Country Aged Care Bequest Program to you as a way of expressing your commitment to excellent aged care in our community.

“We had hoped to launch our Bequest Program at a gathering held in PCAC’s Prom Country House in O’Connell Road in the company of our residents, their families, and our staff and volunteers,” Mrs Liley said.

“We wanted them to be the first to hear about the program, to chat about it and to ask questions, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions the official launch had to be a virtual one.

“Fortunately, we have survived COVID-19 unscathed so far, however PCAC has felt its economic effects as both of our opportunity shops in Foster are still closed and none of our usual fundraising activities have been possible,” she said.

“Much more cleaning and providing personal protection equipment for residents and staff are among the extra costs PCAC is facing just now, without the substantial income the opp shops generate and what our fundraising makes.

“PCAC and Prom Country House are built on a long history of volunteering, especially all of the people who gave so much of their time and worked so hard to support its predecessors, Banksia Lodge in Foster and the Toora Nursing Home,” Mrs Liley said.

“PCAC has the most amazing collection of volunteers and we are utterly reliant on those who are the unpaid members of the board and its various committees, those who come in to Prom Country House to entertain the residents, the people who run and staff the opp shops and warehouse, and those who organise our fundraisers.

“Aged care funding has always been very tight, and the present COVID-19 situation’s additional social distancing and cleaning requirements and their associated expenses may not necessarily disappear either when the pandemic is declared to be over,” she said.

“These factors prompted the PCAC board to look at ways of how best to safeguard Prom Country House in the long term and its members thought of establishing a Bequest Program.”

Mrs Liley said a bequest is an instruction in a will to leave a gift to a particular person or charity.

“A future gift to PCAC, no matter how big or small, may be seen as a legacy and an investment in the future of aged care in our community, in gratitude for care provided to a loved one, or to honour their memory,” she said.

“Alternatively, a bequest can be made in anticipation of the residential care an individual or the members of a family may look forward to being given themselves further down the track.

“We want the Bequest Program to reflect the unique characteristics of PCAC and our Corner Inlet community.

“It was devised due to the need to futureproof PCAC at a time of considerable pressure on the viability of regional aged care facilities throughout Australia.

“We know the community values PCAC, trusts us to look after their loved ones and supports us tirelessly as volunteers,” Mrs Liley said.

“The Bequest Program gives our community a way of demonstrating their future support without requiring any immediate investment, and it’s a concrete way of making an extraordinary difference.”

A brochure on the Prom Country Aged Care Bequest Program is available and those who would like a copy or who are interested in learning more details about the program are invited to ring the PCAC donations co-ordinator on 5682 0800.

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