A Tradition of Great Caregiving
At Home Instead Senior Care, we reward our local CAREGivers with CAREGiver of the Month and CAREGiver of the Year awards to show our appreciation for all they do. Home Instead, Inc. also recognizes regional CAREGivers of the Year and one special CAREGiver who shows exceptional dedication is the recipient of the national award — The Mary Steibel CAREGiverSM of the Year Award.
This program inspires CAREGivers to strive for excellence. It creates a sense of pride in the fact that the Home Instead Senior CareSM franchise network recognizes, appreciates and rewards their hard work, compassionate care and service to others.
Ocala Florida 2010 CAREGiver of the Year is awarded to Janette
One November day, a very enthusiastic, confident, cheerful woman walked into our office for an interview. There was no question after speaking with her that she would make a remarkable CAREGiver for Home Instead Senior Care. Since that day, Janette has brought a smile, warm meals, a safe environment, and a clean fresh home to 26 of our clients.
Janette has a heart for CAREGiving. Currently she reads the newspaper to a blind neighbor almost every day in addition to fixing his meals. She takes food to those in need. She is always cooking for someone. During blueberry season you may find her out in the blueberry fields picking buckets of berries to take to her clients and neighbors.
Janette’s CAREGiving career began when she was just a teenager. While she was thriving in high school, it became apparent that she would have to put her own ambitions, including graduating, on hold to become a full time CAREGiver for her mother who was suffering from an illness that left her unable to be alone. Janette also cared for her father, and grandfather. To this day she feels remorse that she was much too young to help her grandmother and watched as she was placed in a nursing home.
In spite of leaving high school early, Janette has accomplished a great deal. She raised a family, worked full time, was involved in both girl and boy scouts, sang in the choir at church, helped out with her grandchildren and continued to care for her mother. Janette never lost her desire to learn. Before joining Home Instead Senior Care, she worked full time in a large company and was awarded the prestigious Six Sigma certification. In spite of being laid off from her full time job, Janette took the opportunities for re-training offered to her and continued her education by going to classes. After joining our Home Instead Senior Care team Janette completed the Alzheimer's training and the Home Health Aide Training. In between working with her clients and caring for her mother she attended classes at the local community college and earned her State of Florida CNA certification and her GED. Everyone in our office staff can recall both events because Janette came into the office beaming with her certificates in hand. We are all so very proud of her and her perseverance in reaching her goals. Janette certainly lives the adage, “when life hands you lemons make lemonade”. Janette is now tackling new classes and we are waiting to see what her next achievement will be.
To our Home Instead Office and to our clients Janette is a tremendous asset. Our clients are pampered and cared for by her personal and educational experience in CAREGiving, her compassion, and her expert cooking skills as Janette was a cook in an Italian restaurant at one time. She also brings clients blueberries and home baked goods. Janette believes that through food she can bond with her clients by cooking meals that bring back memories for them and very soon a relationship blossoms.
In addition to her scheduled clients, we can always count on Janette to fill in if we need her. In the years she has been with us she has never called off a shift. She faithfully calls in her hours immediately following her shifts and each week she calls in to verify her schedule for the upcoming week. She continues to take care of her mother, her neighbors, spend time with her grandchildren, sing in the choir, and be a professional, compassionate CAREGiver to our clients.
Janette has truly earned our nomination to be the Home Instead Senior Care 2010 CAREGiver of the Year.
Darlene C. Awarded the Ocala Florida 2010 Jack Bechtel Award
Jack Bechtel joined Home Instead Senior Care in September, 2006. He put his clients needs above his own. It was important to Jack that his client was respected and treated with dignity by those who interacted with him. Even though Jack’s client had Alzheimer's, he made sure the client was dressed and well groomed just as he would have been before the disease overcame him. Some of the characteristics that made Jack special were his empathy, compassion, selflessness, patience, and loyalty. Jack positively represented Home Instead Senior Care whether he was working with his client or out in the community. When Jack passed away last year we decided to honor his memory by naming a CAREGiver that also demonstrated these characteristics. The 2010 Jack Bechtel CAREGiver award was presented to Darlene C., who for the past 4 1/2 years, has demonstrated the same admirable characteristics as Jack. Thank you and congratulations to Darlene C.
Ocala Spotlight: CAREGiver for Fall: Kay
Kay’s favorite hobby is crocheting. She won Best in Show for her beautiful hand made afghans two years in a row at the Clermont County, Ohio fair. She is also interested in baking, cooking, and collecting recipes. She loves caring for her “girls” who are actually two very lovely cats. A big part of her life is her church and faith.
Kay gives back to the community by volunteering at Hillcrest School for the mentally and physically disabled children here in Ocala. In 2005 she was named one of five Volunteers of the year for the school. Each month she bakes 150 cookies for the children at the school. Kay is also very dedicated to her weekly ministry of teaching Christian 12 step to female inmates at Lowell prison.
Kay has many individuals that she admires, Mother Theresa is one. What leads her to admire someone is that they are dedicated to what they believe in and they are devoted to helping others who are hurting and in need of love. Kay is motivated by those people whose passion is to make life better for another human being.
Kay has been a CAREGiver with Home Instead Senior Care for 3 years. Prior to moving to Florida she was a CAREGiver at Hospice in Cincinnati. In addition, Kay was the sole CAREGiver for husband during his illness.
Kay loves CAREGiving and credits her clients with teaching her to live life to the fullest, to have fun, do the things that you enjoy, eat what you want and go where you want to. Through her clients, Kay has learned that age is just a number and regardless of what that number is, you can still touch others hearts and lives.
