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Eight years after Callaway’s 600 residents banded together to keep the doors of a skilled living facility open, the central Nebraska town is planning for additional health care upgrades.
Times can be tough for small, rural communities in Nebraska when it comes to health care, employment and economic stability. The town of Callaway has a legacy of holding its own, with the help of its citizens.
On Callaway’s Main Street is a big, colorful map showing the town of 600 people at the center of Custer County, in the heart of the Seven Valleys.
Vicky Hendricks stands with Ron Jorgenson in the garden of the Callaway Good Life Center. (Photo by Pamela Thompson, NET News).
They've got a new restaurant and a fourth doctor is moving into town. Callaway is holding its own these days. That can't be said for many small rural towns across the country.
Many trace the town's ability to remain economically viable back to one night in 2010 -- a night that would alter the town's future for years to come.
But, we’re getting ahead of the story.
It's a story that begins with the town's struggling skilled nursing home that was on the brink of closure.
Retired businessman Ron Jorgenson says a family from North Dakota managed the facility named the Good Samaritan Society Callaway quite successfully for decades. But then, bit by bit, operation of the facility began to drift.
"So that they could say “Hey, this is losing money; we’re going to pull our Medicare certifications,” Jorgenson said. “I wouldn’t blame the Good Samaritan Society because a lot of them did that in a lot of small towns.”
The Callaway Good Life Center sits on five acres and was originally designed so if the need arises, additional wings can be added. (Photo by Pamela Thompson, NET News).
Heath Boddy, president and CEO of the Nebraska Health Care Association, says there’s a lot of pressure involved with rural healthcare in Nebraska.
“There are workforce issues, there are housing issues,” Boddy said. “We’ve got pressures from our federally-funded and state-funded budget with Medicare and Medicaid. It just creates a dynamic that makes it tougher.”
Vicky Hendricks has worked through some tough times at the center. She jokes she's held every job there except cook over the last 33 years.
Hendricks remembers back to 2010 when the center had only 16 residents--less than half what it could serve. And only 30 staffers, less than the 50 they needed when it was full. Instead of preparing to celebrate the home’s 50th anniversary, they were frantically trying to keep the business running.
“It’s really hard for a small facility like this to keep up with the corporate world,” she said. “To be able to match what the big facilities are doing. We just couldn’t do that and we fell behind.”
Jorgenson, the businessman, said the fight to keep the facility open came down to 24 hours -- and a whole lot of money.
Marvin Neth is CEO of Callaway District Hospital & Medical Clinics. (Photo by Pamela Thompson, NET News).
“We came down to the wire,” he said. ”And, we needed $250,000 to keep this place afloat. So, the only thing we knew was to call a town hall meeting. We did that. It was to be Monday night. Their man who came in said we’ll wait until Tuesday before we pull the pin.”
The night of the meeting, Hendricks says more than 150 people crowded onto bleachers in the gymnasium of the town's community hall. She remembers people crying after a man stood up and announced his daughter needed a job more than she needed an inheritance. Then he promptly wrote out a check with a lot of zeros.
Others followed suit.
"We had the meeting that night and we raised the 250," Jorgenson said.
Marvin Neth, CEO of Callaway’s hospital, said those trying to raise funds at the meeting that night were caught off guard by how quickly Callaway’s citizens opened up their hearts and their wallets.
“We didn’t even have the paper with us for them to write their pledges on,” Neth said. “We weren’t prepared for that outpouring of pledges and money, checks, and commitments that we got.”
Downtown Callaway sports no empty storefronts. (Photo by Pamela Thompson, NET News).
Jorgenson says the community’s goodwill didn’t surprise him at all.
“You take a million dollar payroll out of a town this size and that hurts. And then they also spend money; the staff when they leave here, they go to the gas station and the grocery store and the hardware store,” he said. “And every dollar turns seven times, so that does make a difference.”
Boddy said concerned citizens making a difference in a community happens in Nebraska, but in the health care system, he knows of only two other towns in the state that saved their nursing homes like Callaway did.
Brandi Hild owns a Main Street gift shop. Her customers are often in Callaway visiting family members at the nursing home. (Photo by Pamela Thompson, NET News).
“I think the investment that these folks have chosen to make in the healthcare facility, raising those dollars is a big part of that,” Boddy said. “So I commend Callaway and frankly, Wauneta and Bridgeport, for engaging leadership and engaging administration in a way that they’ve created sustainable business operations.”
Today, all of Callaway's storefronts are filled with prosperous local businesses. It's a real point of pride-- and one that small business owner Brandi Hild attributes to keeping the nursing center locally owned and operated.
“As a business owner in this community, I can’t tell you how many times I have people stop in my gift shop and I’ll ask them, “Are you from here or what are you doing here?” And, they’re out here visiting family,” Hild said.
Many visiting families in the nursing home that almost shut down eight years ago. That same facility is no longer just surviving – it’s looking to the future. They’re making plans to add an assisted living center onto its south wing. For Callaway, it’s an opportunity for its citizens to invest in the future -- again.