WCA Home’s Employee for the Month of April is Cassandra Blake.
Cassandra was born and raised in Mayville and graduated from the Chautauqua Lake School system.
After graduation, Cassandra attended BOCES and obtained her PCA (Personal Care Aide) certification. She worked for a while at Heritage Green and Absolut at Westfield and then started work at the WCA Home in July of 2013 as a PCA.
While working at the Absolut at Westfield, Cassandra met her future husband, Michael, through a friend who also worked at the Westfield facility. Cassandra and Michael have been married a little over five years and have three children, two boys and one girl. They enjoy watching family type movies and eating popcorn and look forward to the spring weather. Cassandra and Michael are also looking forward owning their own house shortly.
Cassandra describes herself as a “really loving person who tries to make everyone happy”. She states that she loves her work at WCA Home and thinks it is absolutely the best place to work. Cassandra also states that she thinks her boss, Tammy Skelly (Administrator) is wonderful and never wants to leave.
Cassandra is one of those people who truly enjoys her work and has true feelings for all the residents at WCA Home. She says, she “loves every single resident as well as their individual personality traits”.
Cassandra makes a huge difference in the lives of the residents and is a dedicated employee.
Iva Dattillo is the WCA Home’s Resident for the Month of April
Iva was born and raised in Silver Creek. She graduated from Silver Creek High School and immediately after her graduation was employed as a secretary at Lis Aircraft, which supplied finished parts for the war effort. Later in life, Iva worked nine years as a cook at Aunt Millie’s Restaurant in Irving. Iva smiles as she says she did all the “Italian cooking”, like the sauces, lasagna, and remembers making 400 meatballs every week. While employed at Aunt Millie’s she had a fall that necessitated her retirement from cooking.
It was “young love” when Iva met her to be husband, George Dattillo: she was 14 and George was 17. After a seven-year courtship, George and Iva were married in 1945 and raised two daughters and one foster daughter. The family enjoyed doing many things together and it was a very happy time. George worked at Bethlehem Steel in Lackawanna until 1974 when he passed away.
Besides raising her own daughters, Iva would often watch the children of friends, enjoyed puttering in the garden, she was a Girl Scout Leader, a member of the Mt. Carmel Social Club and the Rosary Altar Society.
Sandy Buckley, one of Iva’s two daughters organized a 90th birthday party for Iva at the Colony House in Irving on Sunday, April 30. It was a large gathering of family and friends to celebrate a lifetime of love and dedication, and the wish for many more years to come.
Iva enjoys life at WCA Home. After having two respite stays earlier at WCA, she told her daughter, Sandy, that when it came time for her to no longer be able to live alone, she wanted to go to the WCA Home. She became a permanent resident at the Home on October 3, 2013.
Even though Iva’s eyesight is fading, she enjoys the musical entertainment that comes in for presentations and the conversation with her three table mates when at a meal. Iva says that the aides just cannot do enough to make you feel comfortable and at home. She says that you can really tell when someone cares and is not just going through the motions of a job – and she feels the aides here do just that…treat every resident as being special.