How Vickie Harper Supports Seniors with Innovation and Heart

I'm Michelle Voke, your host, and I am joined by the vibrant and resourceful Vickie Harper, whose journey into service coordination is as unconventional as it is inspiring.

After spending 35 years as a beloved schoolteacher, Vickie Harper was pushed into early retirement by the Covid-19 pandemic—only to find herself taking on a new challenge just months later: serving as a service coordinator at Plano Community Homes.

Starting her new career amid lockdowns and health crises, Vickie Harper faced the unique challenge of building relationships and trust with her residents while adhering to safety protocols and public health guidance.

Vickie Harper shares how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by fostering inclusive community events—like treasure trove “stores” where residents earn gold coins for participating in wellness and social activities, cultural engagement through drag performances and ballet for seniors, and creative partnerships with organizations that benefit her diverse, multilingual residents.

She talks about the importance of honest communication, compassion, and healthy boundaries, as well as the strategies she’s developed to avoid burnout and ensure lasting impact.

Whether you’re a fellow service coordinator, a housing provider, or just someone who believes in the power of community, this heartfelt conversation offers uplifting insights, practical advice, and a reminder of why the human touch matters most—especially in challenging times.

Here are three key takeaways for anyone working in affordable housing or community service:

• Building Trust Starts with Presence: Vickie Harper actively engaged with residents—even during the pandemic's isolation—by being visible, accessible, and honest, laying the groundwork for genuine relationships.
• Creative Solutions Drive Inclusion: By introducing initiatives like Treasure Trove and multilingual communication strategies, she removed barriers and ensured every resident felt seen and supported, regardless of language or background.
• Boundaries and Self-Care Are Essential: She emphasizes the importance of setting healthy boundaries and prioritizing self-care as foundational to sustaining impact in service roles.

Our Mission

Advancing national standards of practice for service coordination by amplifying the voice of our members.

Our Vision

We are committed to enhancing service coordination through leadership, professional development, advocacy, and partnerships.

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I'm Michelle Voke, and this is The Heartbeat of Housing, where we are sharing the stories of those working to keep residents in affordable housing all healthy, happy and housed. And when I think of happy and service coordination, I think of Ms. Vickie Harper, who we're going to have a wonderful conversation today with. I just can't wait, wait to have this conversation with you, Vickie. I will never forget the first time I met you at a conference. I can't remember where it was. It might have been in California. Yeah.

And you were just a ray of sunshine. All the energy that we need in this industry. And I can't wait for all of our listeners to be able to get to know you a little bit more during this conversation. So I'll kick it over to you. Give us a little information about who Vicki Harper is and how you got to where you are.

Good morning. I'm so appreciative of you guys inviting me, and I thank you. And the American association of Service Coordinators, program and company and all. Back in 2020, I was actually a schoolteacher. I taught for 35 years. And when Covid came along, I worked in a Title 1 school. If I'm correct, I think it's 75 or 80% of the students are on free and reduced. My son actually asked me and begged me to retire because he said, it's not if you get Covid, it's when you get.

And so I decided I would listen to him, though I was a very angry woman because I didn't get to do things on my terms. And I was telling God I wasn't planning on retiring right now. And I retired in July of 2020. And then my son said, hey, Mom. The service coordinator at Plano Community Homes, where he works at night, he said, the service coordinator quit and you should apply for the job. And I said, well, I don't know that I'm qualified. I thought you had to have a degree in social work. And he said, well, I talked to Michelle, who's our hr.

She said, you can apply. And I thought, oh, my gosh. So I called Michelle. We had a conversation. I applied, they interviewed, they offered, I accepted. And God was like, see? And so I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. The irony was about about four months in, a friend called and said, hey, I'm working with a friend of Min who's a principal in a charter school, and they've let go their theater person, and I'd love for you to go and do it. And I said, I have a full Time job.

Yeah.

A couple months after that I get a call from a friend of mine from my former school who said, hey, the new theater teacher is out on sick leave. I guess it was maybe a year later she's out on sick leave. And the principal wanted me to ask you if you would be willing to come in as a long term sub. And I have a phenomenal boss. Her name is Rhoda Byers. And I talked to Rhoda and then I went back and I emailed Rhoda and I said, thank you for letting me work through this, but I made a promise to my residents and I'm not going to go back on my promise. And I also told my friend, thank you all for the offer. I just cannot do that.

Yeah.

So that helped instill in me the confidence that I was again where I'm supposed to be. And so August of this year will be my sixth year.

So what an interesting story. And I'll never forget you telling me this story when we were in. Yeah, we were in California. We were in Anaheim. It was the first in person conference we had post Covid and I think. What was that, 2021. So you were, you were brand new for the most part, just getting your feet under you and you told me that story and I said, I have always thought that former teachers make excellent service coordinators because you are so patient and you're kind and you know, all the things that make you a great teacher also make you a great service coordinator. And then I also said to you, I believe, hey, then I bet you're a really great presenter, aren't you? I bet you could present at this conference.

And what have you done ever since?

Present?

You are always one of our presenters. Yeah.

Just the other day got an email from Kendra. She's approved my presentation for this year in Austin.

Yeah.

And if anybody hasn't signed up for Austin, you need to do so you're not required to take my class, but, or my, my session, but you're going to love it. And those of you from the north, you'll enjoy the heat.

Yeah, it'll definitely be warm in August in Austin, I'm sure of that, but probably cold in the sessions, right?

Yes.

So yeah, I remember meeting you and I also remember thinking, and I don't know if I said this at the time, but now that you tell you, you've told the story again of your journey to become coordinator, how interesting that you left teaching as a result of COVID and your son's concern that you may get Covid in that environment. But then you went to an environment where there were older adults who were very susceptible. And, you know, it was. It was more concerning even for them to be exposed to Covid. So I'm curious what that experience was like to become a service coordinator in the heat of a pandemic.

Our campus was already shut down. And I had actually, back in May and April, I would go to the grocery store. I actually had a form from plano community homes. My son doesn't drive. And so I would go to the store and purchase things for him, Put it in the back end of my car, drive up, he would open the back end, and he would take the groceries and say, I love you, mom. And we didn't touch. We didn't come near each other because our concern was for the residents.

Right.

So then when I go in and became the full time service coordinator, my teacher friends were saying, but you're with seniors. And I said, yeah, here's the difference. When we said, oh, you need to put your mask on. They go, oh, oh, let me put my mask on. And I taught middle school. And I said, middle school and high school, they're like, define mask. You can't tell me to wear a mask. My mother said, I don't have to wear a mask.

And you would get all kinds of grief. We didn't really get that. I did have one resident goes, I have. And I said, oh, really? So do I as I'm wearing my mask. And she looked at me and put her mask on.

Yeah.

And so we didn't have a lot. And I can say we did have a few residents that. And I don't really have the statistics of it, but we had a few residents who had Covid. But they honored our system, which was stay in your apartment, you know, and then when you test negative. And we had all this criteria, our residents understood that importance.

Yeah.

And so because of that, we didn't really have a lot of problems. Again, my boss, Rhoda and I looked at some of the different. Because our concern was we don't want to just go. Go to your apartments and never come out. And so we found out you could group the residents six feet apart. So we would have activities and we would limit it to how many residents could come and then we would separate. Now, at the same time, I would have residents find a friend, grab the chair. No, no, no, you cannot move the chair.

It has to stay because they want to sit right next to their guest room. And so a little education going along on why we had to do that. And the residents were like, oh, okay. And we did so many activities. We're doing far more now than we did back then. But we made sure Thanksgiving is a great example. Our first year with Thanksgiving, we actually purchased the food. I think we had a resident counselor who purchased the meat.

And we then put all this in to go containers. We did sign up sheets for the residents. We then took a cart, loaded up the cart, had the apartment number, and went door to door to everyone that signed up for Thanksgiving. We wanted them to know we were thankful for them. And they were so excited because they knew we had not forgotten them.

Yeah.

And so the next year they were able to come out, so we still couldn't really mingle. So they got to come and pick up their to go container. And we would greet them with a smile and a happy Thanksgiving. And they would take their containers and go back. And so. And then the third year and beyond, we've had sit down meals with our residents and all of us staff. I have learned to cook my mama's dressing that is used chicken stock or turkey stock. I've learned to make it vegan.

And so I have vegans that live here. And it's some of them, it's their choice and some of it's their faith. And I said, I don't care what the reason you're a vegan, I'm going to respect you being vegan. And so we make sure we have food for all of our residents.

Yeah, I think that I, I think that it's super interesting and I'm curious. So you start a job and everyone's isolated, forced to be isolated. Right. And it's difficult to start a new job to build relationships, to build trust, no matter what the circumstances. But you were under circumstances that were exponentially harder simply because of the pandemic. How did that have that first year, even probably the second year, how did you build that trust? How did, especially with the barriers in place that you had. How did, first of all, how many residents do you have at your property? I'm curious about that. And then second of all, how did you break down that barrier? Respecting all of the public health, you know, guidance and making sure people were safe.

How did you build that trust?

One is like my father. I've never met a stranger. They're always friends that I just haven't met yet. Plus, I was, I didn't hide in my office. I was out and about. I mean, I was learning the systems, you know, I was getting on to ask and learning about how to input and things like that. But we wore our masks everywhere we went. And a resident could come to my office in those days, residents could show up at my door and.

And then I would have them come in. But we wear masks, and I make sure we stood the distance. One of the things that several residents had said to me when I first came in, they met me as a part timer, and then I moved into being the service coordinator. And when I became the official, some of the residents said to me, so how long are you going to be here? Because there had been a slight revolving door. And I said, well, I told Rhoda I'd give her five years. And then if she wanted to keep me on, I'd keep going. Well, I'm going into my sixth year. She said, you're not going anywhere.

So I went, oh, good. Because I really didn't want to go anywhere, you know, so. And then when the residents realized one, I don't say something and not mean it. Yeah, I have nine, eight. Eight languages. Nine, counting English. And I never, ever said, I don't understand you. I found a translating tool I used.

Also, nowadays, I tend to use Google Translate more. I have anytime I have flyers, I put them in all the languages. So when residents started realizing, she'll talk to me. And Google Translate, for example, has a conversation mode, and I'll sit my phone down and I will point to it and we will talk. And then I'll tell them, you can just talk in your language. It'll pick it up and tell me what you're saying. Then I would also call family members to say, hey, I'm trying to help your parent with renewing their SNAP benefits. Right.

But I'm having a little problem with translation. And nine times out of 10, those family members said, oh, okay. And they would write then and there, or they would say, can we make an appointment for this time? And then that's what we did. So then my residents realized there is no barrier. I'm tenacious like a bulldog. And they found that I will fight for them. And when a certain company that does Internet stuff and one of their things that they do when you're trying to set up Internet, especially when we had that wonderful, wonderful program that assisted our residents and people of low income to get Internet services.

Yeah.

They would then try to pile on other services, and I would just say, so you're telling me that my senior, who's on a fixed income, should take your additional programs instead of eating? And they're like, well, no, I didn't say that. Well, you're telling me that they really need this program with all these sporting things, and they're going, oh, never mind. And so my residents were like, oh, you do care about me. Yeah, I have a picture that's behind me that you can see. And it's a little winter scene. My cousin painted that. That cousin passed during COVID which was actually a blessing because she had dementia and had really gone down for her. I dedicate working for my residents for my mom and dad that I lost earlier in life.

I always treat my residents as if they were my mom or dad or they were my grandmother or my grandfather or they were my cousin who's having some memory issues, and I don't call them mom or dad. But for me, I'm honoring my parents. Every time. My resident who comes in stressed and panicking, and I'm like, no, no, my shoulders are broad. You let me do that part. And by the end of our meeting, they're going, oh, my gosh, thank you so much. And, you know, what can I do? They want to pay me. I'm like, you can't pay me.

I already have an income. And so I do get fruit and food. I have some of the best cooks in the world. And they worry. I'm like, I'll touch my belly and pat my belly and say, trust me, I haven't missed a meal. But they're so worried that they will bring me food so that they can take care of me. One of my residents actually said to me, I was out sick one day, My asthma was acting up, and I came back the next day, and I met with her, and she said, are you good? I said, I am. She said, okay, you're healthy.

I said, yes, ma', am, I am. She was, good, because you need to stay until I go. And I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. And I said, I will do my best.

Right.

How do I get them to trust me? I'm honest with them. I have my boundaries. They understand those boundaries. They also know if they are afraid or concerned or they don't know what that thick packet, that's all in a language that they don't read. They know they can come to me nowadays, they can still come into my office. But sometimes if I'm in the middle of something, I have to go, what do you have? And then I make an appointment. But then they know there's that peace. We're going to be okay.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's important, you know, I mean, I know that there's days where service coordinators have residents lined up at their door.

Yes.

As soon as they get there. Right. And having that structure in those boundaries in place to say, hey, you know, everybody deserves equal time of mind. And so we're going to set up appointments. I think that's really, really imperative in setting up a good structure. Same thing was probably in your classroom. Right. Had to have boundaries and structure or else there would be chaos and.

And that, you know, when we're dealing with individuals, that's kind of the same mentality. You got to have that structure. They resp to it. They feel supported. It sounds like. And I'm sure the trust. The trust part was not difficult. You are a very outgoing and, you know, speak your mind, but also compassionate person.

And I'm sure that trust was pretty immediate for them. I do appreciate you talking about how there was a slight revolving door before you got there. And building that trust after, you know, there's been some turnover is difficult for a lot of service coordinators and residents where they see someone and they build that relationship, and for whatever reason, that person leaves something that we're really trying to help. Support is not seeing as high of turnover, but sometimes it's out of your control.

And I will say that I do know sometimes it's because somebody comes in and takes the job and they have no clue what it's truly about. So they become overwhelmed. But I do understand. I mean, my boss and my HR boss, they constantly go, vicki, we don't want you to get burned out. We don't want you to get burned out, honey. I was a theater teacher, so I work far more hours than I do here. But they do. They stress because they're like, you worry so much about the residents.

I'm like, that's just my DNA. We can't change that. But I did do Captain Save a resident webinar. And my boss, when I was telling her about Vicki, I was telling you that I went, you were too close. I didn't listen to you. But I did listen to Captain Saver resident. And so I've made a couple of changes, which is really establishing those boundaries a little more.

Yeah. And I mean, that's healthy for everyone. Right. I think it's really important. I know that you are someone who develops great partnerships within your community. So when we think about service coordination, we often think about the residents within the building. But there's so much more to that job. Right.

There's so much more challenge to the job than just the residents within your community. It's building those partnerships and relationships outside of your community as well. So can you talk me through, especially when you started in a Covid environment, you know, what did building relationships outside of your community look like? And how do you continue to manage those and support those relationships to help your residents even more?

Well, we lost quite a bit of programming when Covid came along, so I didn't have a whole lot of partners at first. And then I get this phone call from this wonderful lady, and she said, we're from an organization called Supplying our Seniors. And it started by a gentleman whose mother was a senior, and he realized there's just not a lot of healthy options for seniors. And so they would bring. And this is where I. I get fussed at by some people, but I'm like, I'm not going to change. They know it. My boss knows I won't change, but she's helped me learn to adjust my time.

But they said, we can come on Saturday. That's her best day to come. I'm an old crone, so I don't have to worry. I have two dogs. They're used to me being gone. So, you know, I went, okay. So I would show up bright and early, 7:30 in the morning on a Saturday, and they would come in, and at first they could only bring the supplies in. And then I was delivering them to our resident managers, one of them, my son.

I. I roped them in one. One month to have them help me with delivering. And it was. We had a flatbed cart, and we went to all the different residents that were signed up. They could. They help about 25 to 30 residents. And so we got to do that.

And then I was doing it on my own, and my boss goes, no, no. Time had passed. It was okay for them to deliver to the door their teenagers and their young children. And they were teaching, giving to their kids and such. We still, they now, they have grown to the point that now it's once a quarter and they come out. And now my residents get to shop for the fresh things. And so I have to teach them, you're not signed up, but no, you're not signed up. So teaching them that not everybody gets to take advantage of something.

And I know one of the guys, Bruce, he goes, you know, Vic, they just send out an announcement. Everybody shows up. I said, no, no, because I have control issues. The same 25 will be the first ones down there, and no one else gets a chance. So I rotate my residents through there to keep it fair. And they know how I am about trying to be fair. So then I had a group who said, hey, we're doing Santas for seniors. We have some things we'd love to bring out.

We could play bingo. And I'm like, come on. And now, just recently, I do a thing called Treasure Trove. Treasure Trove is where we get toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, dishwashing detergent, oven cleaner. You name it, we try to get it. They've asked us for shampoo and things like that. When I mention conditioner, most of my residents just giggle. They think conditioner is the funniest thing in the world.

And this offsets their budget. So this allows their money to go further. And they get gold coins for attending exercise programs, for attending guest speaker programs. Last Friday night, they got gold coin for showing going up for our Plano rides, which is a new partnership. And so this encourages my residents to be active. And then also, as my people are coming in, they're learning, well, my Santas for seniors came and said, we want to volunteer with you for Treasure Trove. They brought me so many supplies. They were going, vicki, sit down.

We'll organize the tables. I'm like, what? It was fantastic. And so it's that. Just constant conversations. I can't say enough about our north. I think it's North Central Texas Area Agency on Aging. I have a question. I can call them.

We have Angela Powell, we have Melinda Gardner, and then Felicia and Simon, who also work with Melinda. They have come out, Melinda. And she noticed at one of our meetings, my residents had their cameras up, and I said, they're translating. So then we decided to do a live, like a zoom meeting. And she had her computer screen up, so as she talked, it talked in Korean. And then we would have like two or three meetings back to back. And then the next one was maybe Chinese, and then we had it in Russian and Spanish and Gujarat, which is a derivative of Hindi. And we were able to reach out more, more to our residents, to really give them an opportunity to hear what we had to say.

And they were going, hey, we need some volunteers. And I went, I'll volunteer because I believe in you guys. And so we also have drag queens that who. They're harder for seniors. And so they come to us, and we've had shows. And then we also go to our Pride Festival in Plano. And then we always see the queens there and all. And I don't know, it's like I was at the state fair and went to an Irish dancing group.

I keep my business cards on me. And I started talking with them. They came and did dancing for us. So business cards and not being afraid to say, hey, would you like to come to our place? And I've talked to my theater people going, you guys really need to come and perform for my residents. I got a phone call from. Let me see if I can say it right. Plano, Metropolitan Ballet. Metropolitan Ballet for young.

Young people, for dancing. It's like a dancing school. And she goes, we'd love to come to your. To your building. And I said, that's great. So they come at 6 o' clock at night. And my residents, I get about 30 residents. And I forgot to answer.

I have 167 apartments with about 195 residents.

Okay. I knew you'd get there. I knew I was gonna let you get there on your own.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's a lot of residents. It is. I have three buildings.

Wow.

So I can get my 10,000 steps in some days very easily. And some days there's not even a knock on the door. And I'm working on the computer, but. But they know I'm here for them. And then she then called me up and said, I am actually starting a national. I think it's called the National Texas Ballet, which is a professional ballet company. And then she said, we're. Addison is a nearby town.

And she said, we have a performance and they gift us tickets because her goal is giving back to the community. And I'm like, this community loves it.

Yeah.

I have had residents who've gone, who now have friends here on campus that they're now coming. And we have a beautiful ballerina who comes in. Her name is Erica. And we're doing ballet for seniors. And I love it because I get out there. This is again, it's the theater in me. I love to go to that class. And my residents, many of them are between 80 and 95, and they are giggling because I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm dying.

And they're just giggling because they're like, oh, whatever. It is arabesque and doing this. So much fun with it. And so we have a lady named Violet who comes out and does fitness. And then I asked her if she could do balance classes. She goes, oh, yeah, no problem. So she does balance classes with our residents. And one of the first things I started doing when we were in lockdown was cardio drumming.

And we found YouTube videos. I don't have to do anything with that. Now it is completely resident led. And they get big Yoga balls. They have drumsticks and they go to town, and they know which videos they like on YouTube and that kind of thing. So I don't know if I answered that question.

Yeah, no, you gave us plenty to think about, and, you know, I think, inspire others to think outside the box. Ballet for seniors is. I was going to ask. I'm like, are you guys teaching the seniors how to do ballet now? And. Yes, you are.

We are. And the thing is, it's a lot of it right now is posture and balance. But what my seniors don't know is that we're hoping to one day start teaching some dance. Yeah. And then have them present to the other residents.

That would be incredible.

Yeah. And I cannot thank Cindy with Metropolitan Ballet, who started this. And then we also. Those girls come one Sunday afternoon a month, and we do a meet and mingle, and they reach out to seniors, and the seniors can come, they play games. They get to know each other. And to watch my seniors and watch these young girls putting a puzzle together or coloring together, some of them can speak the same language together, and others, it's a lot of gestures, but it is so wonderful. And so, you know, my calendars now are so full, but I still have. Just recently, a young lady called me and she goes, I have these students, and I wanted to see if you would like a piano recital.

And I said, yes. And that's the other thing is that weekend, I had a Sunday piano recital. On Saturday, I had heritage girls who had a project they were doing, and so they came in to do some arts and more craft. They had four craft tables set up. And so that weekend was a busy, busy weekend. But then I make sure to say thank you. And that's so important is to let them know, you blew us away. You were fantastic.

Yeah. So I'm curious, as someone who, you know, worked as a service coordinator once, and I'm thinking about. I always, you know, when people talk, I always picture my old property and the space and all of those things. What does your community space look like? To be able to manage all of these activities and, you know, performances and stuff? You must have a beautiful community space. Do you?

We do. We have community. We have three buildings. And I have to tell this because when I first found out about it, I said, okay, the front building is called phase three. The middle building is Phase five, and then the back building is phase four. And I said, rhoda, where they built phase three, they built phase four. And they went, oh, we actually have enough money in land. We could build a third one.

It's a little smaller, but because we have 60 people in the front building, in the back building, 47 apartments. I say, people, it's apartments. 47 apartments in the middle building. So it's community room on the first floor. It's very small, but we tend to do our community things in either the front community room or the back one. That community room has a working kitchen. And so. And it's a working kitchen that is.

We have it stocked with lots of pots and pans and dishes and things like that. Some of our residents have said, I'm trying to cook something. Can I borrow this? I'm like, yeah. And they'll borrow it, borrow it, you know, clean it up, bring it back. A lot of times we will cook things at home or have it pre prepped and then bring it and put it in the oven just to try to get everything out onto for a presentation. We have four total campuses. Mine is Plano Community Homes West. The very first one was Plano Community Homes East.

And then there was one called Pioneer Place, which is a stone's throw from East Campus. And I thought, how did they make one so close? Because somebody said, I will gift you this land if you will let us make. And they went, deal. And they said, pioneer Place. And I said, okay, Pioneer Place has, like, a phase one and a phase two.

Okay.

East Campus has a phase one and phase two. And then Katrina McPherson, who also comes and presents, she's at Fair Oaks in Denton, which is about an hour's drive away. Fair Oaks has, I think, 47 apartments.

Okay.

So it's a lot smaller. And so she gets real creative as well on getting programs and things. So sometimes in Plano, for example, we had the Queens come and do a presentation. They were performing, and we were raising money for our transportation. We do have a gentleman named Vernon who is phenomenal. He has a wonderful bus. And some of the residents have asked me, can you drive that bus? I went, you don't want me to drive the bus? I drive like a maniac on a good day with the bus. So Vernon is our savior, and he has two Ford Flex station wagons, and then he also has the bus.

And so he drives our residents around and things like that. But anyway, sometimes we take all of the Plano communities and we go into Pioneer Place because they have two community rooms that can actually be combined. There's just a separating curtain thing.

Yeah.

And so we open that up. We came out, the Queens performed. I watched my residents waving their dollars at them. They Were having the biggest time in the world. We do mocktails all the time. And so they just. They have a blast. And we've done luaus.

We. They've done. Before I got here, they did a roundup. They called it a Western roundup at my campus. We did a murder mystery, and we just did it in one of our community rooms. And they said, we need another guy. And I said, hey, I know how to use makeup. And my thing is I have bright white hair, and so I have to find ways to hide the hair, because that's usually a dead giveaway.

And so I have been a man with a billy club, and I was walking around with these attitudes, and one of the residents, she goes, oh, my gosh, I didn't know that was you. I went, you're Vicki. And I went, who is Vicki?

Oh, that's too funny.

We then did Alice in Wonderland here and talked about being a community and accepting, but I was the Red Queen. And so when I put on my red Queen wig and I didn't wear my glasses, so I was kind of blind, but I was talking in an accident, and I was all for their heads. And Rhoda, my boss, was like, vicki stopped talking like that. I don't know who Vicki is. I had to get out of costume to get the voice to go. And then one of our queens was going to do drag bingo, and he ended up having a medical procedure, so he wasn't able to do it. So somebody asked if I would, and I put on overalls and a flannel shirt and covered my hair and put on sunglasses to cover my eyes. And then I stippled a beard and even stapled chest hair.

And there were residents telling a friend of mine who's a part timer, this guy did bingo. It was so fun. And she goes, yeah, that's my friend Vicki. And they went, no, no, it was a guy. She goes, my friend Vicki, she had to show them a picture without the makeup on. And after. And they were stunned. I'm like, you know, I still use my degree, but.

Yeah, you do.

Yeah, A lot of fun. So that's how we utilize our space.

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like you have great space to use. You guys are really fortunate. One of the things that I wanted to just real quick pick your brain about, because I think this could be really helpful to some of the listeners, is you talked about treasure trove, and you talked about gold coins, and I've never heard this before, but I think it's brilliant because it sounds like that you're incentivizing individuals to go to community events or wellness events in order to be able to participate in other things. So talk a little bit about that concept. I have a feeling it comes from your teaching days in some way, shape or form, because it sounds very familiar to things my children have of experience. But I'm curious more about that project and that process.

I worked at a school called Bowman, and we had BO Bucks and the principal. It looked like Monopoly money, but they superimposed our principal's face on it. You saw a kid, like, for example, I saw a student. Their whole binder just fell out from over their arm and it scattered. And this other student immediately stopped and started helping. You gave them BO Bucks. And if somebody. If they worked really hard and they were really struggling, they pulled their grade up, you gave Boba.

Yeah, positive things. So when I got here, somebody was saying, I wish we could do a store. And Rhoda had said, well, they can't do a store. Because it was something about money's exchanging hands and that kind of thing. And I went, so then we don't use money. And I. So I explained to her, instead of creating little paper things, I bought. I am an Amazon addict.

I will tell you. That is when I under stress, I go to Amazon and shop. But we get these little plastic gold coins we have now taken and putting stickers on them that show our logo and PCH on it, because some of ours go to activity centers. And they were bringing all these other coins. And we're like, no, no, those don't belong to us. You have to earn our coins. And so we have these coins. And at first it started out if you come to guest speakers.

And then I had a wonderful A2A. A2A for us is assistant to administration. So it's first typist Jill of all trades. And she said, can. Can we give this to the residents for cardio drumming? And so Rhoda and I always ask Rhoda about some of these things, and she's like. We both were like, sure. Well, it has taken off. Some of the residents will go, I've got enough coins.

I don't need any more. And then others, I know they will get them. Here's the other nice thing about it. When Treasure Trove Time, we do it once a quarter because it wipes me out if there's a resident who comes with a bag full of coins. But here comes one, and she's got four coins and she wanted something. Everything costs five coins because. And we don't it's not something itty bitty. You know, we make sure it's worth five coins.

So this little resident comes in with four coins. This woman with or this resident with this bag of coins will go here and they will give them and like sometimes enough to get two or three items. So you see a camaraderie. And sometimes they don't even speak the same language, but you can tell I've been there when I've wished I had something and I don't have enough. And they use those plastic gold coins for that. So the coins are free for them. They don't buy them and they come and some of my residents, and the thing you learn real quick is you give the coins at the end of the guest speaker, which as a teacher I knew not to give them at the beginning. That's just like if you have any kind of snacks now, we do many times have movies and we will give them popcorn to watch the movie.

But normally if there's snacks to be served, it's at the end of the presentation because again, there are some who go, I just want the snacks and the coin. And then I'm leaving. But those coins, you know, they've realized how important they are because then they don't have to buy toilet paper or paper towels. Right when we were telling them, you have got to cut the grease on your stoves because depending on how you're used to cooking, a lot of my residents cook with a very high heat. And so there's quite a bit of a splatter. So then I went out, I went to Dollar Tree, I've gone to Walmart, and I go and find these. We had a church that had actually gifted us money. And so the to our three campuses in Plano, because it was church in Plano.

And so I utilize that. I have gone on Facebook and said, hey, if anybody on on here wants to, which are my retired teacher friends, former students, things like that, and they will, we'll get a package and it'll say, love you. Love you, Harper. Harper was what my students called me. And so I knew it was one of my students. Sometimes they don't sign it. Sometimes they let let me know. And so we go with donations.

We have a wonderful lady who does massage and it has grown from one day to three days. We also use our supportive services to assist with that. We don't use that for treasure trove, but it has made a difference. When you watch a resident walk in going, well, I don't know if you're going to be any good. And then they walk out going, oh, my gosh. You know, so she has donated as well. And so, so we just. Anytime somebody says, what do you need? I have shared my list.

I have a little Pictionary list, as I call it, of the way, because I try to keep it uniform. Sometimes I get a huge bottle of dishwashing detergent and I'm. I can't use that one in Treasure Trove because that's the only one that big. But we'll then use it in our kitchens to help support as we are doing different events for the residents.

Wow. Well, I just love talking to you, love hearing these stories, but I think our time is wrapping up. I would just love to hear one more little piece of advice that you could give the listeners, especially new service coordinators. You know, as a new service coordinator, what. What do you recommend somebody does from the very beginning to build those relationships, to start that trust building exercise that you. You talk so much about?

I know for me, at the beginning, yeah, it's having that open door policy, because if that door is closed, and sadly, I don't know who it was that said my door is not allowed to be propped open. So it actually, if you have it open, it'll shut on its own.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm like, that's fine. But at the beginning, I was able to have a door open and so the residents could come by. I moved my office, and when I moved my office and I have recommended this to two other new service coordinators. Do an open house. And so I. I did a flyer that said, where in the world is Vicki Harper? And then I had, you know, where. My new apartment, my new office, which was on the third floor of the same building I was in when. And I had my door open.

I had it propped open that day, but I had fruit trays and veggie trays. I had a cake at the end of the day, there was no fruit, no veggies, but the cake was still there because my residents love fresh fruit and veggies. And so having an open house so you can say hi to the residents, you can have it in your office for me. I put it there so the residents could come to my office. You could have it in a community area where you could just do a meet and greet with the residents. But I think that's number one. Number two, don't be afraid to ask questions. Reach out to fellow service coordinators.

Reach out to ask again. I remember calling because sometimes I can look at something on Ask and I can make it this ginormous Kodiak grizzly. And then I could call you and you guys would go, oh, no, Vic. And by the time we talked, it's like, no, it says a little baby cub. You know, it wasn't the Kodiak that I had in my head. And so don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to find that service coordinator near you that you can partner with. And for us having the three of us, Monday, I had a zoom meeting with two service coordinators in Plano because we are doing a volunteer appreciation at night because we do have teenagers.

And this way the teenagers can come. And we have one of that's new one's coming up on her one year anniversary and she's coming to ask this year. This other one has just been here about three months. She'll come the following year. And I just. I don't know. There was something, I think about her demeanor. And I said, is everything okay? And then she started asking questions.

And then we're like, no, no, you don't have to this. And then between Lindsay, who's been there a year, and me that's going on six, we were able to help her realize, you're doing a good job, you're doing a great job. But sometimes you need to find those people in the trenches. Say, no, this. Let me show you how to make that easier. You need to reach out to this person. And so that's the second and then the third. And this is something that I have been learning.

Take care of you.

Yep.

Because if you don't take care of you, you cannot take care of the residents. And I've heard that since year one. But it finally sunk in. And like I said, I'll hawk it again. Captain Save. A resident was really great because everybody who were so close to me telling me that were so close, I didn't hear it. But when I saw that, I didn't just hear it. I listened to what they said and realized that we have to take care of ourselves.

That is absolutely the truth. And you are learning that every day. We all are learning that. That is a lifelong lesson, I think. But I think you're doing a phenomenal job and I loved hearing all the wonderful things that you're doing. So thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you. Thank you for your time.

And I'll see you in Austin.

Yes, ma'am.