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As a nurse case manager for Homeland Hospice, Batya Kassner finds the collaborative spirit and teamwork “amazing.” 

“Everyone respects everyone else’s role that they play, and everyone is more than willing to jump in and help with whatever is needed,” Kassner said. “The communication is awesome. No team works together without good communication.” 

Kassner has been a Homeland Hospice nurse since the fall of 2023. In a career devoted to nursing, this is her first time working in a hospice setting. 

She knew she was in the right place when she experienced a particular moment with a Homeland Center resident and patient. As he took his last breath, he was surrounded by his best friend, Homeland Center staff, and the Homeland Hospice social worker. 

“I feel like everything clicked, and I thought that this is how it should be,” she said. “It must have been so good for him to know he was surrounded by all these people who loved him, cared about him, were looking out for him, and covered all the bases of his and his loved ones’ needs. It felt like such a complete moment.” 

Kassner is a native of the Harrisburg area who enjoyed volunteering at nursing homes while she attended Trinity High School. She tested her interest in long-term health care by becoming a certified nurse assistant in a small assisted-living facility in Baltimore. Her supervisor, a nurse who co-owned the facility, encouraged Kassner to pursue her nursing degree, which she completed at the University of Illinois Chicago.  

While still in nursing school, Kassner was fascinated by an internship in a behavioral health facility. When she returned to the Harrisburg area, a Homeland Hospice team member she knew from her synagogue suggested that she shadow a Homeland Hospice nurse. She loved the experience. 

She realizes now that hospice combines her love of getting to know long-term care patients with the emotional intricacies she experienced while shadowing in the behavioral health facility.  

“You’re dealing with pain,” she said. “You’re dealing with grief. You’re dealing with loss. You’re helping people through a really difficult time in their life and through a transition.” 

The nurses at Homeland Hospice, a service of Homeland at Home, fulfill a wide range of duties. While monitoring patients and managing symptoms, they also ensure that families have all the necessary equipment and supplies. They are liaisons to the range of complementary services available for patients, including podiatry, massage, music therapy, and in-home support for family caregivers.  

Listening is the key to success, Kassner said. 

“Sometimes, people just have to vent,” she said. “They’ve had a rough year or multiple years going through chronic disease. A lot of it is being able to sit, listen, and understand and not try to fix everything immediately. You can’t assess needs until you really sit and listen to someone.” 

Her patients might be in their homes, hospitals, or care facilities. She especially appreciates Homeland Center staff for their close relationships with all the residents. 

“When I go to Homeland Center, the nurses and staff know who my patients are and immediately tell me what’s been going on with them,” she said. “There’s no having to hunt people down to have to figure out how the patient is doing or how things have changed. They know, and they tell me. It’s really good teamwork.” 

Outside of work, Kassner spends time with her five-year-old daughter, who started kindergarten this year and is an avid collector of bugs. Kassner enjoys reading – a recent stretch of “gloomy Russian-prison weather” inspired her to read Dostoevsky – and languages, with Spanish being her best. She is a self-proclaimed “gym rat” and a hiker whose favorite spot is King’s Gap Environmental Education Center, with its breathtaking views and choice of trails. 

“It’s beautiful and peaceful,” she said. “I’ve never had a bad hike out there.” 

As a Homeland Hospice nurse, Kassner believes she enables families to “live out their love in action” to continue nurturing their time and special relationships with their loved ones.  

“To get to be a part of that is a privilege,” she said. “You’ll hear families reminiscing and laughing even after I pronounce that their loved one has passed. The families are gathered in the house, and they’re all remembering the nice times. I love those moments because I know it was peaceful and that the person is still very present in the love they feel around them.” 

Homeland Center offers levels of care including personal care, memory care, skilled nursing and rehabilitation. Homeland also provides hospice, home care, home health and palliative care services to serve the diverse and changing needs of families throughout central Pennsylvania. For more information or to arrange a tour, please call 717-221-7900. 

Troy Beaver was weighing three job offers when his dad’s hospice nurse told him what keeps her going every day.

“It’s knowing that this could be this person’s last day on earth, and maybe I do something that puts a smile on their face,” she told him. “I could be the last positive thing that happens to this person in their lifetime.”

At that moment, Beaver decided to reject those offers – all in corporations like the one he had just left – and heed the voice urging him to find work that made a tangible difference in people’s lives.

Today, Beaver is Homeland’s new director of development, filling the role held by beloved Betty Hungerford after she retired. He is responsible for supporting Homeland’s fiscal health and long-term viability through philanthropic and charitable giving.

When the opportunity came along, he wasn’t sure he was right for the role. He spent months talking to people at Homeland – including Hungerford – “and prayed long and hard about it.”

“Now, since I’ve been here, I’ve been asking myself why I didn’t do this 30 years ago,” he said.

Beaver was born and raised in Chambersburg, PA. At age 19, he entered the U.S. Air Force, utilizing his fluency in Spanish to serve in military intelligence during a time of political turmoil in Central America.

Even before separating from the military after four years, he started working at Citibank in Hagerstown, MD, filling a need for someone to work with Spanish-speaking customers.

That job blossomed into a director in Citibank operations, taking him all over the world including Europe, South America, Central America and India.

After about 30 years, he started wondering if he wanted to continue.

“I had a feeling that there was something different,” he said. “There’s got to be something more.”

Around that time Citibank downsized and eliminated his job, and after meeting with Barry Ramper II, Homeland President and CEO, it was suggested he could be right for Homeland’s development director.

Beaver’s wife reminded him that he had been praying for “something different,” and the answer was right in front of him.

At Homeland, Beaver has discovered people impassioned about their work in ways that are different than the corporate settings in which he previously worked.

“The staff here embraces the fact that this is a person’s home,” he said. “It’s not a care home. It is their home. That’s the big difference.”

Amid the financial pressures facing today’s nonprofits, Beaver is striving to build on Homeland’s base of donors for decades to come.

“Homeland is 158-years strong,” Beaver said. “But we recognize that we need to always be thinking about how we can ensure we are here to care for our community for generations to come.”

While Beaver brings experience using technology to streamline the search for potential donors, he knows that software isn’t what obtains grants and donations. His solemn task is to build relationships. Hungerford, who was Homeland’s development director for 20 years, reminded him that building relationships takes time.

“Building trust is the most important thing,” he said. “And that takes really getting to know people.”

Beaver and his wife, Lisa, have been married for 36 years and have two sons and a granddaughter. In his leisure time, he plays one of his 12 guitars, including a custom-made Jennings that “is the most incredible guitar, with incredible detail.”

With his former Christian rock band, Prodigal, he has recorded two CDs and jokes that he is an “international recording star” because three of those CDs sold outside the U.S.

Beaver looks forward to continuing to get to know Homeland residents and building relationships with donors.

“I’m getting a really big friend base here,” he said. “All I can hope for is that in the time I’ve gotten to know Homeland’s residents and its family of supporters, I’ve been a bright spot for them and made them happy.”