Helping Hands Home Support Services is celebrating 20 years of filling a need in the community.
They are hosting a celebration on Tuesday, November 12 at the Badlands Community Facility. It is a homegrown success story originating in Delia and now serves Central Alberta.
“Helping Hands was started by my mom Penny in 1999,” explains Jessica Holmes. “My parents live in Delia, which is why we started our service in Drumheller. Mom was an LPN for years at the hospital and she worked in Home Care and at the Sunshine Lodge and then she started Helping Hands.”
At the time it filled an important gap in Care.
“In the early 1990s we experienced health cutbacks with the Klein government, and at that time she was seeing more people applying to come into the lodge, who prior to that had been receiving home care,” she explains. “When those supports were cut it was leaving folks not able to maintain their independence at home. Mom was before her time so to speak, before aging in place and that sort of thing wasn’t a catchphrase like it is now.”
Her business took off, serving Drumheller and area. In 2009 Jessica began a division of Helping Hands in the Red Deer area. She left her nursing job and took on the new challenge. It began as a partnership, but then Jessica purchased the Red Deer service. They have since remerged.”
They currently serve 11 communities in Central Alberta and now have over 50 staff.
“Seniors are our primary focus but have done things for older adults with physical limitations, even got younger folks as well. Part of that is in their home, part of that is in a facility and a lot of it is working with a team of primary caregivers, family supports or whatever socials supports they have,” said Jessica.
Jessica credits her mother for her foresight in developing this business and the relationships with their clients.
“She always had an entrepreneurial spirit but had no formal education in business and has created something that has been able to sustain for 20 years and continue to grow and be healthy. It would be very difficult to count the number of lives you have touched,” said Jessica.
The celebration is at the Badlands Community Facility with a “come and go” between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m with a cake cutting and short program at 3 p.m.