AARP Recognizes Right at Home Hiring Efforts

By: Jessie L. Bonner

A local business has partnered up with the country's largest senior group in an initiative to attract older employees back into the work force.

An AARP campaign to promote businesses that recruit, hire and retain employees who are at least 50 years old has recognized Right at Home, a senior home care company with five offices in Florida, including Bonita Springs.

Right at Home of Southwest Florida, on Bonita Beach Road, provides in-home care for elderly and disabled residents in Bonita Springs, Fort Myers and Naples.

Local offices have been owned and operated by Sandy Foland and Peggy Baker since 2003.

"About 80 percent of our caregivers are 50 and older," Foland said. "We have a lot of retired nurses."

Right at Home was one of 11 businesses recognized by the AARP in its campaign to promote the hiring of employees who are above the age of 50. Other businesses that have agreed to recruit and hire older workers include Cingular Wireless, CVS Pharmacy, Verizon, and Comcast Cable Communications.

The recognition carries enormous weight with the 2.7 million AARP members throughout the state, said Bentley Lipscomb, AARP's Florida state director and a former state secretary of elder affairs. "It gives them instant credibility," Lipscomb said. "If we recognize this home health agency in a place that's as elderly-rich as Florida, guess who they're going to call when they need a home health agency?"

The AARP campaign to promote the hiring of older employees was started earlier this year. Professions throughout the United States are facing critical shortages, said Lipscomb, and the shortage will only worsen with the upcoming retirement of the generation of baby boomers.

"The demographics in the United States are fairly clear about what's going to happen," he said.

In an attempt to try to stifle some of these shortages, the AARP promotes businesses such as Right at Home that have made a commitment to hire and retain employees over the age of 50.

The Right at Home office in Bonita Springs employs 35 caregivers who are trained and insured to provide care for residents in Fort Myers, Bonita Springs and Naples.

A large number of the agency's patients suffer from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and diabetes, Foland said.

San Carlos Park resident Diane Schroeder, 58, has been working with the agency for two years.

For the past six months she has given in-home assistance three days a week to Fred, 89, and Florence, 90, Patterson, of Naples.

"I try to make them smile and laugh as much as I can," Schroeder said. "I try to make sure that they get a well balanced meal."

The business is licensed with the state as a Home Healthcare Agency and is also registered with the state as a homemaker companion agency. Caregivers provide housekeeping, meal planning and preparation, shopping assistance, routine household activities, companionship in the client's home and can accompany the client to appointments and other outings.

Foland said she is always looking to hire more caregivers, a task that will be made somewhat easier with a plug from the AARP.

"I believe it will make seniors in the community see that there is a place for them to go and help other seniors," Foland said. "That there's part-time employment out there for them to help other people.

© 2005 Bonita Daily News and The Banner. Published in Bonita Springs, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co