Are you thinking about moving into a retirement community but don’t know where to start or what questions to ask? Or are you envisioning your grandma’s retirement community when thinking about needing more care? Then the Tacoma Senior Living Community Tour – covering five communities on Feb. 21 — might be just the thing for you.

Tour participants can ride in vans or drive their own cars to visit Franke Tobey Jones, Merrill Gardens, Narrows Glen, Tacoma Lutheran Retirement Community, and The Weatherly Inn to see what each has to offer. 

“We’ve hosted this tour several times in the past four years, and all to multiple-van capacity,” said Jason Kitchel, sales and marketing director at Narrows Glen. “The moment we start publicizing this event, the vans fill up, so we know there is a real need for this type of education.”

The five-community Tour will be hosted on Feb. 21 from 9:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. The program is as follows:

• 9:45 a.m Start at one of the five communities. Hear a short presentation about communities and the day’s activities. Tour that community.
• 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Get aboard the community van or drive in your own car and go to the next community. Each van will have a representative from that community on board to answer questions. Each van will stop at all five locations, or drive yourself and visit the communities         you choose. Tour ends. Van riders will be taken back to their starting community.

The vans fill up fast, so tour organizers ask anyone planning to ride them to RSVP by Feb. 16 at 253-756-7562.

“We’ve found that most of the seniors on this tour are just starting the process of looking around and seeing what communities are in the area and what they have to offer,” said Linda Lee, community relations director at Tacoma Merrill Gardens. “Tour participants can compare prices at each community, tour a few apartments, taste the food at each community, walk through some of the grounds and get a good sense of how each of them compare.  They walk away at the end of the day with a totally different perspective than what they started with.”