Raymond G. LaVoie
After retiring from a 35-year career with Nationwide Insurance in 2013, Dedra Thompson had no idea that her dream job was still waiting for her. And she didn’t know that dream job was actually right in front of her.
“I never realized when I retired that the years worth of volunteering that I did at LifeCare Alliance would lead to a career,” she says. “That is absolutely the best job anyone could ever ask for.”
Thompson began volunteering for LifeCare Alliance while still working at Nationwide, and it’s where she was first introduced to the Evans Center.
“Once I began doing a little bit of volunteer work, an opportunity arose for a dining center coordinator at the Evans Center,” she says. “So, we talked through that opportunity and I decided to come on part-time in 2013 with LifeCare Alliance.”
Her primary job function was to go to the Evans Center every day and serve the meals delivered by LifeCare Alliance. In addition, Thompson would encourage socialization and involvement with activities and programming at the center. Her involvement with Evans Center only grew from there.
“For the last two or three years, I served as the vice president there,” she says. “Once that happened, that kind of threw me into a little bit more of the volunteerism at the center, and that was overseen by (Evans Center director) Tammy Jefferson.”
Before the pandemic, the Evans Center was a place where older adults could gather, share stories and build relationships over its daily meals. Evans Center regulars had built their own community.
“At one point, we had probably about 50 different folks that would come and join me for lunch, maybe once or twice a week,” Thompson says. “Sometimes I had regulars that would come five days a week. They would come not for the meal, necessarily, but for the socialization and because they’re active and they want to do other things at the center.”
Last year, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the center had to temporarily close its doors.
“When we shut the doors in March, Tammy and I just looked at each other and said, ‘This is just gut wrenching,’” she says, “because our seniors really need to a place to go.”
Distributing grab-and-go meals from the Evans Center, December 2020: Sue Thompson, Traci Burley, Tammy Jefferson and Dedra Thompson.
So, Thompson worked with Tammy and Leah Bunck at LifeCare Alliance to arrange a grab-and-go lunch system in the parking lot of the Evans Center for older adults to drive by and have a contact-free lunch provided to them. While it wasn’t quite the same, it still provided that sense of friendship and community many of the older adults were seeking.
“We started doing that last summer and continued about every two weeks doing that,” Thompson says. “We were able to be there at Thanksgiving and Christmas which seemed really important to folks to be able to stay connected to the center.”
One interaction toward the beginning of the pandemic during a grab-and-go lunch really resonated with Thompson.
“One of the ladies (was) brought by her daughter,” she says. “(The daughter) looked at me and her mom was in the car, and she said, ‘Are any of your other seniors struggling?’ I looked at her mom, and I looked at her, and I said, ‘I think we’re all having trouble right now.’”
As she tells the story, Thompson tears up – it was that moment that she truly realized the loneliness and struggle to adapt that faced so many older adults during the pandemic.
Staying in touch through grab-and-go lunches, phone calls, and even text messages and social media for the often newly tech-savvy seniors was a major source of support to get through that loneliness.
“We were also able to partner together to create a Facebook group for our seniors during the pandemic as part of the senior club,” says Thompson, laughing. “They have taken off. It’s got 180 members and (the older adults) own it now, so they do their thing.”
It’s clear after just a short discussion with Thompson that she’s not just passionate about the acts of serving and giving back, but about the Evans Center regulars themselves.
“My favorite part is that I love the seniors,” she says. “It wasn’t just about lunch. They would come in and they would talk and they would share about their family, they would share about events in their life and I grew really close to several of them.”
LeeAnn Butcher
Another perk to being involved with the center, says Thompson, is the insight she gets into older adults’ lives and what they’re going through, as it helps her understand and connect with her mom, LeeAnn Butcher.
“When I started at the center and then later when I started volunteering more, my mom started coming twice a week to the center,” Thompson says. “She’s at Grovewood Place and she’s 84, so it’s an opportunity for me to have another view and keep a lens on what that age group experiences, what things they worry about, what things are important to them.”
LeeAnn is the reason Thompson came to Grove City. When LeeAnn and husband Bernard decided to downsize and buy a house in Grove City 15 years ago, Thompson and her husband Don decided to move to the area as well with their now-adult daughter Jessica.
Two of Thompson’s three sisters – Denise Parker and Debbie Harlow – still live in central Ohio, too. After Bernard passed away in 2011, the family’s bond grew even closer.
“Our family is very close,” Thompson says. “My two sisters and I are able to keep mom active during the week. With dad passing, that his us all really hard, but we kind of felt that we needed to make sure we stay even closer with mom.”
Dedra and Don Thompson with grandchildren Eli and Isaiah
Keeping true to tradition, Jessica spends a lot of time with Thompson. Jessica and her husband Ron Brown bring their two boys, 5-year-old Eli and 2-year-old Isaiah, to visit their grandparents for lunch every Sunday.
“The two little guys are our world,” Thompson says. “We’re so glad to have them and a wonderful daughter and an outstanding son-in-law.”
While Thompson loves to bring Eli and Isaiah to Gantz and Windsor Park when the weather is nice, the thing she most loves about Grove City isn’t a place, but a feeling.
“What I appreciate the most is the sense of community,” she says. “It’s a small group feeling, a small community feeling, and I learned that a lot from interacting with the seniors. They care about one another; they look out for one another.”
It’s safe to say that the impact of working with older adults has changed Thompson’s life for the better.
“It is actually, truly a dream job,” she says.
Sarah Robinson is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at srobinson@cityscenemediagroup.com.
