Editor’s note: Home Sweet Home is a feature appearing Mondays in McKnight’s Home Care Daily. The story focuses on a heartwarming, entertaining or quirky happening affecting the world of home care. If you have a topic that might be worthy of the spotlight in Home Sweet Home, please email Caroline Szachnowski at [email protected].
For the second year, a child of Josephine Worthington has been able to take advantage of Libertana Home Health’s scholarship fund — and she is thrilled.
“I’m very thanking for Libertana, having and giving these scholarships,” said Worthington, a licensed vocational nurse and site manager at Libertana, a Los Angeles-based company that helps seniors, people with disabilities and children in public subsidized housing.
The program, which the company introduced during the pandemic, offers scholarships ranging from $500 to $1,000 to children and grandchildren of employees who are embarking on degrees in higher education. This year, one of Worthington’s four children, who is a freshman at UC Santa Cruz, received $1,000. Last year, another one of her children, who graduated from USC, received a scholarship.
The fund reflects the values of the company, explained Matthew Istrin, a business technology analyst for Libertana and nephew of Jonathan Istrin, the firm’s executive director.
“Education is very important to us and we find it as a pathway to advancement,” Matthew said.
The company started the scholarship in the midst of the pandemic as a way to help employees, who number more than 600, he said. It gave 20 scholarships last year and 13 this year.
“I think COVID shined alight on how we can treat our employees the best,” he said. “We think the best way to do it was to support their families, and education is very important to us.”
Besides the scholarship, Libertana started a tuition reimbursement program during the pandemic. It also began donating money through the app Charity Miles. And in the last two years, it began making contributions to the Tuskegee Airmen Scholarship Foundation.
“When we support our staff, they can support clients and business can run,” Matthew said.
For Worthington, who is from the Philippines and has worked at the company for eight years, the scholarship is another example of how the company offers a sense of home for her. She appreciated that the company gave 80 hours of emergency sick leave due to COVID-19.
With leaders like Jonathan and others at Libertana, “you kind of have the feeling you have extended family there,” she said.
This article originally appeared on McKnight's Senior Living
