Living the EGStoltzfus Values

When Landis Homes, a senior living community in Lancaster County (and EGStoltzfus client), told Stefan Sheckells that his mother’s residential wing was going to be renovated, he had mixed emotions.

“I was encouraged, I was enthusiastic because it all sounds really great,” Stefan said. “It was going to improve her quality of life and the ability for her to have better care.”

But it wasn’t going to be easy.

“I also was a little bit concerned,” he said. “Because any changes to her room and her patterns can be very disruptive.”

He anticipated a lot of work to relieve his mother Helen Sheckells’ stress. But he didn’t need to worry.

“EGStoltzfus and the whole team did such a wonderful job of causing the least amount of disruption as possible,” said Stefan’s wife Jenny.

A Special Friendship

The EGS Commercial Construction team worked with Landis on staging the work, identifying the most critical areas and making sure they were done quickly.

And then something magical happened.

In Jenny’s words, “Helen’s primary caregiver came up and said, you have to see this. Helen has a friend, he’s one of the guys on the crew.”

It was in fact, Hayden Jennings, EGStoltzfus’ assistant project manager, who struck up a friendship with Helen.

“We met one day through one of the nurses who introduced us,” Hayden said. “We sat together and did puzzles. And we just hung out.”

“You could see the two of them just enjoying each other,” Jenny said. “Helen gets this big, huge smile on her face when she enjoys someone. And she was just looking at him and smiling and I thought, oh, this is going to be fun.”

And it gets better.

Cheeseburgers with a Side of Kindness

“Somewhere along the line he found out that Helen in particular loved cheeseburgers,” said Shannon Martin, EGS’ operations manager. “So he went out of his way and stopped at McDonald’s, bought her a cheeseburger and just had a simple meal together. Shared it with her.”

“Cheeseburgers are one of her favorite special lunches or treats,” Jenny said. “She was so happy. She enjoyed the entire cheeseburger.”

Instead of the stress he expected his mother to experience, Stefan said, “Her experience was wonderful.”

“Hayden was giving a part of himself to this project…” Shannon said.

“Hayden was demonstrating compassion and care, not only for the work that he was doing and the quality that he was doing, but also for the relationships that he was building with the people he was meeting.”

Hear from Helen’s family as they share their thoughts on Helen’s special bond with Hayden:

In this touching story, Hayden calmed a resident’s fears and made the project go easier. But he did something else that was almost as important. He lived our values as a company, demonstrating who we are and how EGStoltzfus is different, demonstrating the care and understanding each of us brings to work every day.