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Intrinsic to our company culture as a locally-based, member-owned cooperative is the genuine care we have for our communities.
What started as a conversation several months ago led SkyLine to learn of a local community need, identify a solution and pursue a grant opportunity that would enhance the level of care for seniors in an assisted living facility in Ashe County. The senior services sector has grown in recent years with the establishment of two new assisting living facilities and the expansion of a local rehabilitation center. Ashe County ranks in the highest percentage bracket in the state with 30 percent of its population age 60 or higher, and this segment is expected to increase to 35 percent by 2034.


Awards and certifications
Licensed by the N.C. Division of Facility Services, Ashe Services for Aging has received numerous awards and certifications for providing programs of superior quality, excelling in addressing the needs of its older citizens and recognition as being a ‘model’ multi-purpose senior center. It currently enjoys the designation of being a “Senior Center of Excellence.”
SkyLine applied for the Smart Rural Community (SRC) Collaboration Challenge through NTCA to secure a new close-captioned surveillance system for Ashe Assisted Living and Memory Care Center.
The assisted living facility was lacking high-quality access to video monitoring and did not have enough resources to purchase a complete system. The West Jefferson-based, not-for-profit residential care facility is owned and managed by Ashe Services for Aging (ASA), a non-profit agency that has been providing quality and compassionate care and services for the elderly and disabled adults of Ashe County since 1977. AAL services individuals 55 and older that need assistance with activities of daily living (bathing, dressing, toileting, ambulation and eating), medication management, meal preparation, daily activities program, transportation to doctors’ appointments and recreational events, as well as partnership with home health, hospice and behavioral health.
SkyLine’s CEO Jimmy Blevins first recognized how this center could benefit from the matching grant program while visiting his mother who resided there. The Challenge is an annual opportunity for rural broadband providers like SkyLine to obtain grants to deploy broadband-enabled solutions within their community and recruit the participation of other local leaders. Blevins shared the grant opportunity with Center Administrator Bevin South and the two organizations worked together to submit an application.


Those who worked on the SRC grant application and project included staff from ASA, AAL and SkyLine (left to right): Patricia Calloway, Karen Powell, Bill Clark, Bevin South and Jonathan Risk.
Having a state-of-the-art surveillance system through this collaborative initiative allows AAL staff to monitor the safety of its residents more effectively and capture on video unwitnessed falls, patterns of wandering and attempted elopements.
“I am so grateful to Jimmy and everyone else at SkyLine for turning our need into a reality,” said Bevin South, Administrator of Ashe Assisted Living and Memory Care. This system will help us ensure that we are providing the best services possible to our residents at ALL times, further enriching and celebrating their amazing lives.”
SkyBest’s Security’s surveillance/iP Network solution offers 3.0 Mega Pixel HD image bullet and dome cameras with some of the best night vision available and its onsite Network Video Recorder (NVR) comes with a mobile app to view live footage, making fiber-optic bandwidth a necessity.
“The installation of security cameras throughout our assisted living community has been a goal since our opening six years ago,” said Patricia Calloway, Ashe Services for Aging Executive Director. “Unfortunately, the drastic decline in Medicaid funding has left several projects unrealized. With the support of SkyLine, we are so grateful that we can now move forward with adding this amenity to our community.”


Mailing Address
P.O. Box 759
1200 NC Hwy 194 N.
West Jefferson, NC 28694
Phone Numbers
Toll free: 1-800-759-2226
Phone: (336) 877-3111
Fax: (336) 877-2020
Web Address
skybest.com
Office Locations
Banner Elk
Boone
Sparta
West Jefferson
(Smart Home & Call Center)