Sarah Evans-Mabry had tried to retire. After moving from Lexington, North Carolina, to her West Virginia home about a half-hour’s drive west of Winchester, Virginia, Sarah went online and found Home Instead® of Winchester, an award-winning franchise owned by Keith Clay that serves the Northern Shenandoah Valley.
“I had heard about Home Instead when I lived in North Carolina. After the move, I figured there had to be a Home Instead franchise nearby, so I did a Google search. I had retired, but I love being around people. I am 72, but I just cannot sit around. I need to be around people,” said Sarah, who joined Home Instead in June 2021. In July 2022, Allyson Starling, who works in the franchise’s human resources department and in recruitment and retention, announced Sarah had been honored as the office’s Care Professional of the Month.
Sarah and Home Instead have proved to be a great match. Referring to Sarah’s desire to seek another job after her retirement, Allyson said: “We find that many people have opted to ‘unretire,’ or return to work, perhaps in part-time roles, after their initial retirements. According to 2019 research conducted by the Home Instead corporate office, 53 percent of those soon to be retiring believed they were likely to return to work after retirement.”
Allyson added: “Home Instead’s ‘UnRetire Yourself’ program encourages those people to combine their passions and experience to identify fulfilling post-retirement employment, including professional caregiving. We are so happy Sarah chose this route, and it was a natural one for her because she had enjoyed her work as a private-duty caregiver in North Carolina.”
Toward the end of a successful 16-year career with a North Carolina insurance company, Sarah and several others collaborated to assist area seniors. “When I retired from the insurance company, several friends enlisted me as a private-duty caregiver. I’d help for five hours at a time
at first. One lady needed 24/7 help. I ended up doing overnight shifts. I worked with one client more than five years,” Sarah recalled.
“When I lost her, I volunteered for Meals on Wheels for a while. At that time, I wrote a note that said, ‘If you need caregiving help, I am available,’ and dropped them off when I left the meals. So, I began helping another lady for four years or so. I was at her 101st birthday party in May of that year, and she died one month later.”
Sarah always has had a compassionate spirit. When she was in high school, she taught a Sunday school class for mentally and physically challenged at her church. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Sarah served as the fire marshal and was an EMT in Lexington. She also did respite-care work part time for vulnerable adults through a county agency. There also was long-distance family caregiving duty for her 86-year-old father.
“My daddy was in a nursing home in Pennsylvania for 18 months. I was traveling from North Carolina to Pennsylvania once a month on weekends. He got encephalitis from shingles, and he suffered blindness and brain damage. He knew who we were despite the encephalitis. When I visited him, I tried to help him in any way I could, including ‘lotioning’ him and doing things that provided comfort,” Sarah explained.
Sarah is an outstanding Care Pro because of her empathetic heart and the sum of her experiences, including her own hospital stay. “I can sympathize with my clients’ physical challenges because I’ve been through some myself. I was hospitalized in 2016 for 2½ months. I was in three hospitals and had two surgeries. I am doing well now. I was bedbound for a while, and I can tell clients I know what it’s like to be there. Those 2½ months were very hard, so I understand crankiness. I remember having such a bad day that I told my minister to go away during one of his hospital visits,” Sarah said.
Referring to her Home Instead work, Sarah said: “All of my clients are good, even the grumpy ones. How do you not get attached to your clients? I try to make the day as happy and enjoyable for them as I can. I am always asking, ‘What can I do for you?’ Some seniors say they feel
‘useless,’ and I try to encourage them not to feel that way. I try to make their day. For some, they have outlived all of their family and friends. I tell them, ‘That’s why we’re here.’ ”
Sarah added: “I try to do anything to make them feel better. You have to try to honor their independence as long as they are safe with what they want to do. One client told me, ‘Unless I ask for help, please don’t step in and try to help me.’ Others feel bad about having to have help with personal care, but I try to let them know it’s OK. I had the same experience in the hospital.”
Sarah also tries to get to know her clients as well as she can. “I engage them, such as, ‘Have you lived in this area your entire life?’ I love to listen to their stories. One client has a wealth of knowledge about Winchester. It is such a learning experience to hear her stories.”
When Sarah totals up the positives, she said: “I like working for Home Instead, and I want to keep working until I drop. I just hope that is not anytime soon. I really enjoy it. If I won the lottery, I’d be a Care Pro for nothing. I just love the people and their stories.”
All Home Instead Care Professionals are screened, trained and insured. For inquiries about employment, please call (540) 722-8750 or apply online. For further information about Home Instead services, visit our website.
