A conversation with Michael Matteo, general manager of the Village at Unity in Rochester
Q. What’s all the buzz about the Village at Unity?
A. “The Village at Unity is one of Rochester’s largest and most experienced senior living communities. Our campus is a park-like setting on 12 acres, offering independent living apartments, assisted living, memory care, or Opal Living apartments.”
Q. What are some of the services provided?
A. “Here are just a few services that our residents love! A lot of communities have some of what we offer, however, no other community has all of the choices that we offer.
• Choice of Restaurants: The Village at Unity offers three restaurants — each featuring a distinct style of dining from fast casual to homestyle to fining dining — and the meals are prepared to order.
• Easy Transportation: The Village at Unity offers four sedans, three buses and a campus shuttle that runs seven days a week. There are no limits to how many times transportation can be used. Couple that with our corporate Uber account, and our residents can get wherever they want whenever they want.
• Things to Do: Our calendar of events is so big we publish a companion day by day booklet. We have a proprietary piece of software that can remind residents of events.
• Added Bonus: We even have washers and dryers in our apartments so there’s no sharing of laundry appliances.
• Local Roots: We have local roots dating from the original Village at Park Ridge in 1990, but now with national experience and service choices like no other. Many of our employees have been here 10 years or longer and that’s reliability you can count on.”
Q. How is the Village at Unity involved in giving back to the community?
A. “We do this in ways big and small. We collect money on casual Friday and donate to local charities. We also sponsored the public television broadcasts of “Chasing the Moon” on PBS. This came with a lot of companion pieces for our residents to enjoy. We put on free concerts with contemporary music on our Village green, and we adopted Rochester’s School of Arts which again gave our residents great programming but also provided food, school supplies and instruments to this amazing group of students.”
Q. What interests you about your job?
A. “These residents are amazing. I get to moderate a series of discussions called ‘Investigating American Presidents.’ It’s a DVD course which we watch together and then talk about the content. We just covered McCarthyism and I got to ask questions of people who were there. Fascinating! I’m honored to be a part of their journey.”
Q. Last question. Why should someone choose the Village at Unity?
A. “Oh, easy one! It’s all about choices. We don’t tell people where to eat, when to eat, what to eat. We don’t limit transportation or just have a couple of things to do. When we say, “choices like no other,” we truly mean it. That’s why people choose us.”
The Village at Unity • 1471 Long Pond Rd., Rochester • 585-206-2103 • www.thevillageatunity.com