Aimee Riemke
Greencroft Communities, Vice President of Marketing
Even through all this, there have been some really heartwarming and inspiring things that we’ve been able to see.
Our team members – even though they’re on the front lines and at risk – continue to want to put our residents first and come to work every day and be there for them and engage with them in a different way than they had before. Now we’re one-on-one with our residents.
All of our residents took up a collection and gave every team member a $10 gift card to Martin’s as a ‘thank you’ for the service they’re providing. It’s just heartwarming. It’s a great way to celebrate and support our team members, and a nice way to support Martin’s.
We’ve seen our greater community step up. Every week, we’re getting donations of food, whether it’s coffee or doughnuts or cookies or even masks. We got a donation of masks and face shields from Forest River. We’ve been really blessed to have the support from the community for our residents.
Our own independent living residents, within two weeks of the emergency declaration, they were organizing themselves and all learning how to make masks. Judy Miller, a resident on our campus, coordinated it all.
They downloaded templates and they all got together. They were socially distanced in our community center. They had a class for people who needed the class. And then they all went home and took whatever material they had and made masks for each other.
They were able to supply all of our residents and our team members in our health care building, and they also had some that they sent to our sister facility in Fort Wayne. That was just an amazing thing to see.
Our IT department stepped up and made sure everybody had iPads. Our team members have stepped up to help residents connect that way. Not all of our health care residents are tech savvy with that, but they just love being able to see their family members and connect with them that way.
There are probably five different people who are sending letters to campus just to brighten the day of our residents. They hand-write pen pal-type letters and also draw artwork on the letters. They’re all individualized.
It’s easy to see all the things we could be upset about during this time. It’s so much better to look at the positive things. Like Mr. Rogers always said, ‘Look for the helpers.’ You see what you seek, and in Goshen it’s very easy to see the goodness in people.
Do you have a story you want to tell?
Do you have a story to tell about someone who contributes to Goshen’s greater GOOD?
We invite you to share!