The story that started it all…

Karin Krause grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. Everyone in the neighborhood knew each other. Parents took turns watching each other’s children. If someone was sick, meals were taken to them.

When Karin’s father suddenly died at the age of 33, neighbors and men from their church showed up to help with snow shoveling and home repairs.

There was also a neighbor everyone called Grandma. She often just happened to be baking cookies when Karin walked home from school and her mother was not yet home from work. Inviting Karin in to help meant less time alone for both Karin and her neighborhood Grandma.

Years later, as a teenager, visiting this one-time neighbor in a nursing home, Karin first experienced the heartbreak of seeing a loved one treated not as a person, but as a number in a facility. She began to ask herself how this could be changed, and soon found herself vocationally inspired.

Fast-forward to Karin, now an RN, working as a nursing supervisor in a nursing home. On staff that night was a CNA that Karin loved to work with, who genuinely cared about the residents. But on this particular night she was distracted, leaving the floor several times unannounced. Karin finally pulled her aside and asked what was going on. The answer would prove to be both disturbing and life-altering.

Later that night, with prayer, a lifetime of experience in elder care would be brought together with personal memories and the haunting plight of a young, at-risk family.

No era or society is perfect, but when Karin was growing up, she experienced a community where people looked out for and cared for one another. Today, this seems to be a lost paradigm; we want to bring it back. Watch Karin tell her story in detail, and explain how this can be done.

​And the story continues…