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A new Abbeyfield for St Joseph, Illinois, US
Allan Snowie, chair of Abbeyfield International, recently visited Mary and Charlie Butzow who have been working with the Abbeyfield Society of St Joseph to get a house built in their community. They are also extremely active in the revitalized Abbeyfield USA. Both attended the Glasgow, Scotland, Abbeyfield gathering in 2005.
The twin cities of Champaign-Urbana are located 150 miles to the south of Chicago, Illinois. The population is about 100,000 and is boosted by a further 30,000 when the State's University of Illinois is in term. Directly to the east of the cities there is a 'box' area of four towns separated from one other by about seven to nine miles. St. Joseph is the first followed by Ogden with Sidney and Homer respectively to the south. St Joseph apparently did not come by its name in the Biblical sense but was named for Joe Kelly's Tavern, a local watering hole frequented by Abraham Lincoln when he was an itinerant attorney riding the legal circuit.
The State of Illinois is the size of England and the Champaign-Urbana area is essentially rural. The four towns mentioned are truly pretty in a Norman Rockwell artistic sense, well treed, with older buildings. St Joseph, at six miles, is the closest to the twin cities and has a growing suburban element. The morning after arriving, we drove through each of the four communities and Mary Butzow pointed out several obvious Abbeyfield locations. The local people are very friendly and very proud of their towns.
In Canada there are ten Societies with plans to build but without the extra money needed before they can start. Charlie's idea is to work with a large contractor who would find the site and build the House to our plans, and hand it over as a turn-key operation for Abbeyfield to run. The Butzows are flying to the meeting in Oxfordshire, England, at the end of May to describe this approach. Combined with Life Lease financing, where some residents buy into the House, these two approaches could help all Abbeyfield projects come to fruition for what is our goal: care and companionship for lonely seniors.
