In June, Mary Thomas, Administrative Assistant at Traceway Retirement Community, came to me and she had just had a phone call from one of our new residents. The resident had gone to Nashville to visit her sister and she was coming home Sunday on the Greyhound bus. Her bus broke down in between Nashville and Memphis, and she spent several hours on the side of the road waiting on a new bus to pick the passengers up. Because of the break down she was going to miss her connection to Tupelo. She called just to let us know that she would not be coming in as expected. She went into her story with Mary and the resident said she would spend the night in the Greyhound bus station in Memphis then catch the Tupelo bus the next morning.

Mary could tell the resident was very tired and frazzled. Mary told the resident that she would call her back. Mary then came to me and we discussed the matter. I called Debbie Williams, Accountant for the MSS Home Office who lives in Germantown, TN, and ask her if she could pick the lady up at the bus station at 3:30 so she did not have to stay the night there. Mary immediately volunteered to drive to Memphis to get the resident and bring her back to Traceway.

Debbie happily went to pick up the resident and held a sign up that said Traceway so the resident would know who she was supposed to go with. The resident waited comfortably at Debbie's home until Mary arrived to pick her up. The resident was happily settled back into her Traceway home thanks to Mary and Debbie.

I text Debbie to tell her thank you for her all she did and she responded 'Happy to Help.' All employees need to adapt this attitude. Maybe we should rename our program 'Happy to Help'!

Bravo to these two ladies for putting the elder first and doing whatever it took to make her journey better.

Submitted by Dawn Steinman, Director of Retirement Living at Traceway Retirement Community