Employee Appreciation Week 2021 – A Letter From the President

KEF 9 19

Concordia’s annual Employee Appreciation Week is officially in the books, and we had a blast celebrating our amazing team members! Our employees enjoyed themed dress down days, tasty treats each day and special video messages from a few of social media’s animal stars.

This jubilant week, which is held each year to coincide with National Nursing Home Week, provides us with the opportunity to thank each and every team member in a meaningful and fun way. The following thank you letter from Concordia President and CEO Keith Frndak was published in our employee newsletter yesterday. Take a look, and then enjoy the MANY photos we have in the slideshow at the bottom of the page – if you follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you can like, comment and share most of these photos, since we’ve been posting them all week!

Dear friends,

The pandemic has changed our world exponentially in the last 14 months – both the world around us and our world here at Concordia. But I’d like to focus on something else for a minute (shocking, I know). I want to focus on the fact that this is Concordia’s 140th anniversary year, and the role each of you play in this storied history that we continue to write every day.

When Concordia formed its mission in 1881, those founding pastors, church members and employees knew that the journey they were embarking on wasn’t going to be an easy one. If caring for orphans and the elderly was simple, there would have been places like Concordia everywhere. But there weren’t, so they decided to fill that great need. They did the hard thing because it was the right thing.

In our early days, Concordia operated a working farm so we could feed the orphans and seniors in our care, as well as make extra money to pay the bills. When our barn, which was vital to our operations, burned to the ground in 1918, the staff, church community and our neighbors/friends came together to help us rebuild and soldier on. They knew that our mission needed to survive, and they gave generously of their time, talents and treasures. They did the hard thing because it was the right thing.

On a Sunday morning in 2006, a fire started in our Haven 1 retirement apartment building on the Concordia at Cabot campus. Despite the tireless efforts of local fire companies, the entire building was destroyed. By the grace of God, not a single person was lost in this disaster. In the days, weeks and months that followed, the Concordia Family came together like never before. Displaced residents were moved to the recently opened Lund Care Center expansion next door, donations of clothes and other items came in so abundantly we had a storage problem, and the team at Concordia stepped up in a way that is almost indescribable, tending to every need of those displaced residents. The Concordia Family came together again. They did the hard thing because it was the right thing.

YOU are a part of that family and legacy. And the same dedication and sacrifice displayed by those people throughout the years is shown by all of you, day in and day out. When history looks back at what you all have done during one of the most difficult times we’ve ever experienced, it will be with disbelief over your sacrifice and what you accomplished given the circumstances under which you were operating. God has been guiding all of us to – you guessed it – do the hard thing because it’s the right thing.

This last year has made me prouder than ever to work alongside such an amazing group of people. Whether you work in direct caregiving/nursing, therapy, housekeeping, maintenance, food service, accounting, administration, or in any of our other vitally important departments, we are BLESSED to have you. THANK YOU for the work you do every day.

In His Service,

Keith E. Frndak
President & CEO

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