The Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House will welcome its first visitors next week. Photo courtesy of the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House.
Out-of-town visitors to St. Mary’s Hospital could get a break from napping in waiting rooms and snacking from the vending machine while they care for a family member.
Bon Secours opened the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House last week at 1100 Libbie Ave. as a place for out-of-town families to stay while a relative is treated at St. Mary’s.
More than $3.2 million was raised to build the 14,000-square-foot house that sits next to the St. Mary campus. The first guests will arrive next week.
The guest house has 16 rooms like this one and two family suites. Photo courtesy of the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House.
The house has 16 rooms with private baths, and there are also two family suites with extra living space. Guests share a kitchen, dining room, living room, children’s playroom, community room and two laundry rooms.
This is Bon Secours’ first guest house for any of its local hospitals. St. Mary’s previously relied on four two-bedroom cottages to house out-of-town families of patients.
“It’s an important project for the community,” said Lisa Patten, the guest house’s executive director. “It’s an important project for those in need, people who come to us from great distances, so they can remain close to their loved ones.”
The Reinhart Foundation donated $1 million for the project in memory of Evelyn Reinhart, the building’s namesake. Reinhart was a registered nurse and a volunteer at St. Mary’s and died from cancer in 1986.
KBS Inc. served as general contractor for the project and Odell did the design work, Patten said.
The facility has three full-time staff members, including Patten, three part-time employees and volunteers.
Patten said guests could be parents of a newborn in the neonatal unit or relatives of a cancer, major surgery, or trauma patient, for example.
The guest house is an alternative to a hotel, which can get expensive over long stays, Patten said. And it’s within walking distance of the hospital.
Families can cook, do laundry and keep up other routines they might not be able to do at a hotel.
The house gardens. Photo courtesy of the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House.
“It’s not just a place to lay your head down,” Patten said. “It’s a home away from home.”
The guest house suggests a donation of $40 a day, but guests who cannot afford it won’t be turned away, Patten said. There are no income requirements to stay at the house, but the family and the patient must live at least 30 miles away from St. Mary’s.
Patten said the house’s capacity should be sufficient, but she can’t predict the demand. If they have more requests than they can accommodate, guests will be selected based on the health of the patient they are caring for.
Patten said she hopes for volunteers and food and supply donations. She also said they hope to raise at least $250,000 a year to keep the guest house running and offer services to the families.
The Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House will welcome its first visitors next week. Photo courtesy of the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House.
Out-of-town visitors to St. Mary’s Hospital could get a break from napping in waiting rooms and snacking from the vending machine while they care for a family member.
Bon Secours opened the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House last week at 1100 Libbie Ave. as a place for out-of-town families to stay while a relative is treated at St. Mary’s.
More than $3.2 million was raised to build the 14,000-square-foot house that sits next to the St. Mary campus. The first guests will arrive next week.
The guest house has 16 rooms like this one and two family suites. Photo courtesy of the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House.
The house has 16 rooms with private baths, and there are also two family suites with extra living space. Guests share a kitchen, dining room, living room, children’s playroom, community room and two laundry rooms.
This is Bon Secours’ first guest house for any of its local hospitals. St. Mary’s previously relied on four two-bedroom cottages to house out-of-town families of patients.
“It’s an important project for the community,” said Lisa Patten, the guest house’s executive director. “It’s an important project for those in need, people who come to us from great distances, so they can remain close to their loved ones.”
The Reinhart Foundation donated $1 million for the project in memory of Evelyn Reinhart, the building’s namesake. Reinhart was a registered nurse and a volunteer at St. Mary’s and died from cancer in 1986.
KBS Inc. served as general contractor for the project and Odell did the design work, Patten said.
The facility has three full-time staff members, including Patten, three part-time employees and volunteers.
Patten said guests could be parents of a newborn in the neonatal unit or relatives of a cancer, major surgery, or trauma patient, for example.
The guest house is an alternative to a hotel, which can get expensive over long stays, Patten said. And it’s within walking distance of the hospital.
Families can cook, do laundry and keep up other routines they might not be able to do at a hotel.
The house gardens. Photo courtesy of the Evelyn D. Reinhart Guest House.
“It’s not just a place to lay your head down,” Patten said. “It’s a home away from home.”
The guest house suggests a donation of $40 a day, but guests who cannot afford it won’t be turned away, Patten said. There are no income requirements to stay at the house, but the family and the patient must live at least 30 miles away from St. Mary’s.
Patten said the house’s capacity should be sufficient, but she can’t predict the demand. If they have more requests than they can accommodate, guests will be selected based on the health of the patient they are caring for.
Patten said she hopes for volunteers and food and supply donations. She also said they hope to raise at least $250,000 a year to keep the guest house running and offer services to the families.