‘Home sweet home’: New adult daycare, Joe’s Place opens in O’Fallon

What once started as a passing thought years earlier, has now become one family’s reality in O’Fallon.

It wasn’t until after Janis Stauder quit her job to become her dad, Joe Donald Weiker’s, full time caregiver that she realized the “gap in the care for senior citizens.”

Janis’ father battled Alzheimer’s for seven years.

“We took care of him, and it was a very arduous thing to do,” Janis said. “When I quit my job to take care of him, I soon realized that not a lot of people could do that.”

There really wasn’t a lot of options in the area, Janis said.

“What was available I really wasn’t comfortable with, so to keep him at home as long as I could I did what I had to do, and that’s when I realized there was a really large gap in the care — so we decided to bridge that gap with Joe’s Place,” Janis said.

Joe passed away three years ago.

“We decided to start this project,” Janis said, as she glanced over at her daughter Kristin Stauder, who acts as the facility assistant director. “We go from Autism to Alzheimer’s.”

Kristin said the facility is open for anyone 21 years or older.

The facility has only been open for about a month, and has seven contracts thus far, Kristin confirmed Wednesday.

“It’s just been so unpredictable outside lately too, so we are hoping that once the weather breaks we’ll be able to have more visitors for tours,” Janis said. “We had an older couple scheduled for today, but they called and said ‘it’s just too cold.’”

Janis and Kristin already started some seed cultivation trays in the sun room with clients to prepare for planting in the spring in the facilities backyard.

Kristin added that although they are reaching out to local hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, social workers and schools to get the community familiar with the new adult daycare, they remain hopeful that with time building a rapport with those in the community will be forthcoming.

“We have lots of activities that can be for anyone,” Kristen said. “We have bingo for the older generation, gardening and life skills games or activities we can do with the younger generations too.”

Elaborating more on clientele, Janis said, individuals with other conditions like Down’s Syndrome, too.

“When they age out of school people can’t stay home sometimes and so they need a place to go,” Janis said. “We didn’t want Joe’s Place to be clinical but more of a home-like environment.”

Janis said activities of daily living (ADLs) is a phrase commonly used in the healthcare field that refers to people’s daily self care activities.

“We do the ADLs with our older generation folks, but younger generation need to have life skills too, for example, what they can do at home to feel useful and accomplished, so we can absolutely help facilitate that,” Janis said.

Janis’ son, Bryan Stauder, 24, is at the helm of the kitchen at his family’s new facility, where a continental breakfast, lunch and snacks are offered to clients through out the day.

Other services available at Joe’s Place include a hair saloon, a shower and a walk-in bathtub.

Janis grew up on a farm in Missouri, but moved to the metro-east 30 years ago to be with her husband Jim Stauder, who’s from Belleville. The couple now live in Swansea.

The new facility is located at 1032 Hartman Ln. in O’Fallon.

For more information on tours call 206-6067 or visit www.joesplaceadultdaycare.com.

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 1:31 PM with the headline "‘Home sweet home’: New adult daycare, Joe’s Place opens in O’Fallon."