Christina Heffelfinger, Direct Care Worker

Meet Christina Heffelfinger, a recent recipient of Allied Services Miracle Makers Award. A Scranton resident, she is a Direct Care Worker with Allied Services In-Home, providing home and community based services to assist persons with disabilities and older adults with activities of daily living. She has been with Allied Services since October 2018.

Christina is a mom to seven children, and will soon become a grandmother. She decided when her youngest child began school that she would branch out, and that Allied Services was her first choice.

“I think it’s my calling,” she says of caregiving. “It takes a lot of dedication and compassion to do it. This isn’t a just a job you can do for a paycheck. This is a job that you have to be dedicated to and your heart has to be in it.” In the future, Christina plans on utilizing Allied Services tuition assistance to become a Certified Nurses Aide. “It’s better to have knowledge and certifications because it allows me to stay in this field and broadens what I can do.”

A typical day for Christina involves spending two hours a day with each client. She helps with personal care including bathing and dressing clients, as well as preparing meals and light housekeeping. Christina admits that everyone does the job differently, but feels that a big part of the job is companionship. “You get close to your clients. You build a relationship with them where they have to trust you and you have to trust them, and that takes a lot to do.”

When Thanksgiving rolled around, Christina wanted to do something for the individuals that she knew would spend the holiday alone. She reached out to the owner of Buona Pizza in Scranton. Each year, the owner prepares a Thanksgiving meal for those in need. Through their collaboration, they were able to deliver over forty meals to clients, and make their holiday season just a little bit better. Their partnership was so successful that they plan to do it again this year.

Christina’s drive to make a difference did not end with Thanksgiving. With Christmas right around the corner, she wanted to continue spreading some holiday cheer. She made sure each one of her clients received a small gift and a meal. She put the word out through various websites and social media. “We made sure everyone got something little: decorations, lights, little trees…something little as a gift and it wasn’t much but…how happy it made them…it was all worth it”.

Her hard work paid off, and Christina received so many donations that she had to clear out space in her garage to hold everything. She has since continued to accept donations for her clients, including furniture. “You can’t have enough. You’ll always find someone who needs it,” she says. All of her generosity to her clients has caused her to reflect on the effect of the work she was doing, as she herself had suffered a great loss from a house fire two years ago.

“Like I tell my kids, it’s never about receiving something, it’s always about what you can do for somebody else and making an impact and a difference where sometimes people need it more than you”.

On behalf of your clients and Allied Services, thank you, Christina!

To learn more about career opportunities with In-Home click here.