Meet Donna
Executive Director
The executive director, along with our friendly and professional staff, strives to create positive, stimulating ways for residents to continue living life with meaning and purpose. We are a friendly family where we treat residents like real people with real life stories.
Our community is a great story that includes heartwarming chapters and incredibly unique characters all in a wonderful setting. Here is the executive director’s story:
How long have you worked in the retirement industry?
18 years
What do you like best about your job?
The residents and the relationships that we form with them.
What do you like to do in your free time and why?
Spending time with my husband, our dogs, running and hiking.
If you could meet one person, past or present, who would it be and why?
I would love to have been able to meet my father-in-law. He passed away before I met my husband. My husband speaks about him often, and what a great man he was. I would love to have had the opportunity to tell him thank you for the influence he had on my husband being the wonderful man he is today.
What’s your favorite movie and why?
Driving Ms. Daisy, it’s just a feel good movie.
What’s your favorite dish or dessert and why?
I love ice cream – it’s comfort food.
In what ways do your residents inspire you?
We have some couples that have been married over 65 years. You can tell by looking at them that they love each other more today than they did the day they got married. They cherish each other and you do not see that a lot in our society anymore.
Do you have any memorable experiences with a particular resident you would like to share?
I had a resident who was a remarkable lady. She had taught bible study at her church for years. She volunteered to teach our Wednesday morning bible study. We always had a full house because everyone loved her and respected her so much. My husband was deployed in Iraq at the time and the week after he left for Iraq, she came to me and asked if she could lead a prayer for my husband’s safety while he was deployed. I was so grateful for her thoughtfulness and everything she did for our community.
How do you honor your residents at your community?
We honor our residents each and every day by showing them the respect that they deserve.
Tell us about a resident with a remarkable life story?
We have a resident who grew up in Germany, met her husband there, and after her husband served a year in a German prison they made their way to the United States. We are blessed to have her living in our community today. She is a remarkable lady and you would never guess when meeting her that she has celebrated her 100th birthday.
Tell us about a resident whose life changed for the better once they moved to your community.
We have a resident who moved into our community suffering from depression. He had been through a lot and was severely depressed to the point of isolating himself and not communicating with others. He never called me by my name. I wondered if he remembered my name those first weeks. We got an outside agency to provide therapy for him and he soon began to come out of his apartment. He actually became very close to one of the other residents. I will never forget the day I was walking down the hall and I greeted him, and he said “good morning” to me and called me by my name. At that point I knew we had made a difference in his life.
In what ways do your employees inspire you?
Our team members inspire me by the way they always treat our residents with respect and by always remembering that we work in our residents’ home.
How do you create a family-like atmosphere at your community?
We have developed a strong team. We get to know each other and get to know about each others’ families. We celebrate our successes together as a team.
Tell us about an employee who embodies one of our core values – integrity, respect, responsibility, professionalism or teamwork.
It is hard to single out just one team member. We have a very strong team at our community. You get the feeling of family when you walk in our doors. All of our team members embody our core values and treat all our residents, family members and each other with kindness and respect each and every day. Our team members recognize the difficult decisions that our residents have to make when leaving there home and moving into a community. We do everything we can to make our residents feel at home from the moment they walk through our doors for the first time.