A North Tustin senior living community will now be able to hold Mass for its residents, as well as offer confession and perform last rights, following a visit Monday, April 4, by Bishop Kevin Vann of the Diocese of Orange.
Vann blessed the Prescott Chapel at Clearwater at North Tustin, which has a Roman Catholic orientation and opened to residents at the end of last year, offering independent living, assisted living and memory care support. Already it has filled about half of its 100 units.
“It gives Catholics the ability to receive communion and a place to worship outside of having to go to the church,” Executive Director Tammie Sampedro said, pointing out some seniors can’t travel to services as they once might have.
The chapel will also be used as a theater and learning center and is open to all faiths.
Over the years, a variety of uses had been proposed for the property where the senior community was built, but it has always been intended for a faith-based facility, said Earl Prescott, whose parents, John and Mary Prescott, donated the land to the then Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1956. The Diocese of Orange was formed several years later.
John Prescott was born on the property in 1924, as was his son, Earl, in 1954.
“I’m elated,” Earl Prescott said about the property being developed. “Finally it’s being put to very, very good use.”