Seeding the Future -- Fall 2009

Additional Information

For related information please view our quarterly newsletter.
Fall 2009 Newsletter & Annual Program Report July 2008 - June 2009

Archived Articles

3/30/2010 - Seeding the Future -- Winter 2010
12/28/2009 - Seeding the Future -- Fall 2009
9/03/2009 - Seeding the Future -- Summer 2009
5/27/2009 - Seeding the Future -- Spring 2009
3/30/2009 - Seeding the Future -- Winter 2009
12/17/2008 - Seeding the Future -- Fall 2008
9/23/2008 - Seeding the Future -- Summer 2008
6/23/2008 - Seeding the Future -- Spring 2008
3/18/2008 - Vibrant as We Age - Winter 2008
12/10/2007 - Vibrant as We Age - Fall 2007

The past fiscal year, highlighted in this Annual Report, marked my fifth anniversary with Ursuline Senior Services. Our wonderful staff and board members have navigated many changes together in that short time, with many more on the horizon. In fact, we find ourselves in the beginning stages of a whole new strategic planning process when it feels as though we just launched the last one!

Yes, work is underway to continue the building needed to constantly improve the quality of program services provided here at Ursuline. As a first step in that direction, the Board of Directors, with input from the leadership team, adopted a new mission statement this summer to guide our efforts for the upcoming years. This simple phrase, “helping older adults age with dignity” is a direct extension of our current-yet somewhat longer-mission statement which emerged from the process begun nearly five years ago. A mission statement to an organization such as Ursuline is like a compass, always pointing true in the direction we are committed to go. Our focus, as always, is on those we serve and how we can better provide the type of services we ourselves would want to receive- in the manner we would like to receive them-with dignity!

In many ways, our mission statement is the Golden Rule of our agency, a constant reminder that we should always be serving those who turn to us for help in the manner we would choose to be served ourselves. Examples of this message abound, but I recently came across one I would like to share written by Eric Harvey, Founder and President of WalkTheTalk.com a daily e-newsletter I receive. He reflects on the Golden Rule in this way:

...my father was my hero. He taught me many things, but at the top of the list, he taught me to treat people with love and respect... to live the Golden Rule. I remember one particular instance of him teaching this “life lesson” as if it were yesterday. Dad owned a furniture store, and I used to dust the furniture every Wednesday after school to earn my allowance. One afternoon I observed my Dad talking to all the customers as they came in…the hardware store owner, the banker, a farmer, a doctor. At the end of the day, just as Dad was closing, the garbage collector came in.

I was ready to go home, and I thought that surely Dad wouldn't spend too much time with him. But I was wrong. Dad greeted him at the door with a big hug and talked with him about his wife and son who had been in a car accident the month before. He empathized, he asked questions, he listened, and he listened some more. I kept looking at the clock, and when the man finally left, I asked, “Dad, why did you spend so much time with him? He's just the garbage collector.” Dad then looked at me, locked the front door to the store, and said, “Son, let's talk.”

He said, “I'm your father and I tell you lots of stuff as all fathers should, but if you remember nothing else I ever tell you, remember this…treat every human being just the way that you would want to be treated.” He said, “I know this is not the first time you've heard it, but I want to make sure it's the first time you truly understand it, because if you had understood, you would never have said what you said.”We sat there and talked for another hour about the meaning and the power of the Golden Rule. Dad said, “If you live the Golden Rule everything else in life will usually work itself out, but if you don't your life probably will be very unhappy and without meaning.” (Copyright Simple Truths, LLC, all rights reserved and reprinted with permission.)

I and our team here at Ursuline Senior Services work hard to bring the mission statement (our own “Golden Rule”) to life in each interaction we share with others, whether service recipient or co-worker. To paraphrase Mr. Harvey, we strive to empathize, ask questions, listen, and listen some more. Everything we do should be done with an eye on adding dignity to the lives of those we serve as well as those who share in our labor. The next several years will be pivotal for all non-profit organizations. I want each of you to know that we here at Ursuline will be focusing on some fairly basic fundamentals in an effort to become the best we need to be so to fulfill our mission of helping older adults age with dignity throughout the community we serve.

--Tony Turo, Executive Director