Assistant Director of Activities Emma Lengyel: Having fun with friends

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Assistant Director of Activities Emma Lengyel

When she was in high school, Emma Lengyel was passionate about making people laugh.

“I was in every play and musical,” she said. “I also enjoyed writing and art.”

Today, Emma still makes people laugh, bringing a note of cheer to the days of Homeland residents in her vital role as assistant director of activities.

Emma grew up in the Lancaster area, where her mother was a retirement-home aide, and her father worked in auto body repairs. In those years, she would visit the residents where her mom worked, sometimes even bringing her pet rabbit on a leash.

She continued her creative ways by earning her bachelor’s degree in art therapy from Marywood University in Scranton.

Early in her career, Emma worked in retail, but in college, she realized she wanted a job helping others, so she worked in group housing for adults with mental illnesses. After graduating, she returned to Lancaster and “got a little gig caring for a 93-year-old while her family was at work.”

“I really enjoyed talking to her and finding things to keep us busy all day,” Emma said.

That experience provided the spark of inspiration that led to working as an evening shift activity aide on an advanced dementia unit at a Harrisburg-area retirement community.

“There, I learned how to use my creativity to keep residents entertained and how to adapt and be flexible in a rapidly changing environment.”

Emma joined Homeland in 2020, seeking an opportunity for career growth. It feels full circle from those days of taking her pet rabbit on nursing home visits.

Her duties include behind-the-scenes planning and prep work for Homeland’s robust array of activities. She creates calendars, books entertainment, and orders supplies, but she also gets the fun of running programs whenever she can.

“Each day is different,” she said. “Sometimes I work at a computer all day, and the next, I’m dancing in a shark costume with a bubble machine. The best part of the job is spending time with the residents and making them smile.”

Her colleagues help keep the job light.

“We have a great activities team,” she said. “Each of us has different abilities and skills that enable us to support one another and stay devoted to the residents.”

Just like in high school, she enjoys laughing at work and creating a fun environment. Halloween and the holidays are her favorite times of the year when she gets out her boxes of themed outfits and accessories.

“I will take any excuse to get dressed up and decorate,” she said.

Emma remembers the challenging days of COVID lockdowns. She ensured residents could still play bingo, knowing how important it was to them, even though hallway games left her with a sore throat from shouting numbers through an N95 mask.

During the height of the pandemic, she spent little time with family or friends and didn’t even hug her own parents for a whole year. She and the activities team knew that residents felt the same loneliness, so they visited whenever possible.

“Just spending five minutes talking or holding someone’s hand became so significant,” Emma said. “It was a kind of mutually beneficial relationship.”

At Homeland, Emma has had the good fortune of developing “actual, meaningful” workplace relationships, and she calls the residents her friends.

“You spend so much time with them throughout the day and learn so much about their lives and life in general that you can’t help but care for them like friends,” she said. “Working with the residents at Homeland has taught me to open up my heart more.”

Homeland resident Bernice Shaffer: Always looking on the sunny side

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Homeland resident Bernice Shaffer

Bernice Shaffer once lived in a nursing home where the food was dreadful. Then she came to Homeland Center, where she says her first meal and all the others that followed were wonderful.

“Chicken and waffles,” she remembers. “I like it here.”

Bernice arrived at Homeland during the pandemic and has made a home in her bright skilled-care corner room. Despite many decades of health challenges, she maintains a positive outlook and enjoys the care provided by Homeland staff and devoted family.

Bernice grew up near the small York County town of Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, in the even smaller village of Clear Spring.

“All it had was a store, a hotel, a garage, and a sawmill,” she said. When she was around 12, the family moved to the nearby hamlet of Braggtown.

“All that had was a store,” she said. “A little grocery store.”

Her father worked at the Mechanicsburg Navy Depot, starting as a tank mechanic during World War II, and her mother worked in a local shoe factory. After Bernice graduated from high school, she followed in her mother’s footsteps, so to speak, with a shoe-factory job.

From there, Bernice always worked hard, no matter the challenge. When her three children were young, she was a single mother without support. She and her mother–a young widow after the untimely death of Bernice’s father from a heart attack–worked to support the kids.

“It was rough, but I didn’t feel defeat,” Bernice said. “I just wanted to be a parent. Things don’t always work out the way you want them to.”

Bernice did clerical work for the state, worked in manufacturing, and handled items in a Town & Country store warehouse.

“I was so glad one day when they told me I could do underwear because they were down on the lower shelving,” she said with a laugh.

Finally, she landed at Erie Insurance, supporting the sales staff. She worked there for 35 years before retiring. At 41, she feared losing her job after a heart attack put her in recovery for several months, but her employer assured her that her job was waiting.

After a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, Bernice acquired a service dog named Levi. The day she met the black Lab, they walked around the room together. Then she sat down.

“And the minute I sat down, he came over and laid his head on my feet,” she said. “They said, ‘Well, this is a match for sure. He wants you.’”

Levi, who lived to be 14 years old, “was wonderful,” Bernice said.

“I got a saddle on him with a handle, and he’d help me walk. If I dropped something, he’d pick it up and give it to me,’’ she said. “He would get the telephone for me sometimes. Everybody in the family loved him. He was like a human.”

Levi even came to the office, settling on a cushion made by Bernice’s daughter. Co-workers would take Levi outside for walks and to chase tennis balls.

At Homeland, Bernice still enjoys the food–the chicken sandwiches and chicken pot pie are favorites–and getting her lovely salt-and-pepper hair done weekly at the Homeland beauty salon.

The Philadelphia Eagles fan enjoys sparring with staff who root for rival teams. One nurse started the 2022 season by predicting that her Steelers would crush the Eagles. Then the Eagles kept winning while the Steelers struggled.

“I said, ‘Now what do you think?’” Bernice said. “She said, ‘Now I’m worried.’”

It’s just part of the support network she enjoys at Homeland.

“I get along with most everybody,” she said. “They help me whenever I need something.”