MEOC personal care aide Edna Ayers is the 2020 Grace P. Davis Award recipient.
The award annually recognizes an in-home and family support services staff member who has shown dedication to MEOC’s mission. The recipient must demonstrate compassion, concern and respect in providing services to frail older clients.
Award nominations are made by clients. Eligible employees include those who provide services through the homemaker, personal care, adult day health care and/or respite programs.
Ayers, of Big Stone Gap, has worked at MEOC since August 2015. She is also manager at MEOC’s Big Stone Gap congregate meal site.
Ayers is characterized as kind, compassionate, honest and hard-working. One client wrote in her nomination for Ayers, “She has always been kind to me and anyone who comes to my house … She works diligently to see that I am well taken care of and able to stay in my own home. She is compassionate and concerned about the health of her clients. She has great respect for older people and all the places she works. I don’t know what I would do without her.”
Ayers was presented the award by MEOC Director of In-Home & Family Support Services Heather Oakes during a January 12 virtual staff meeting.
MORE ABOUT THE AWARD
The late Grace P. Davis was a retired Lee County educator who was instrumental in the organization of MEOC and provided invaluable leadership in its growth and expansion for 25 years. Davis was a leading and outspoken advocate for development of in-home services for the elderly. She served on the local planning group that received the initial grant in January 1974 that established MEOC and on the agency’s board of directors through 1999, when she resigned at age 96 because of health problems. She passed away in September 2002.