Cedar Crest	UPDATED: Friday, February 29, 2008
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Students make residents proud

Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008

By Joel Keller
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

In April of 2002, Melissa Knight took a job as a server at Cedar Crest, a retirement community in Pompton Plains. She didn’t know what to expect; all the high school junior knew was that she could get a shuttle bus to and from school and that it was better than the average mall or supermarket job.

“I had a couple of friends who worked for them, and they said the pay was good for students” compared to other places in the area, she says.

What Knight and her fellow students found out was that working at Cedar Crest isn’t just an ordinary part-time job. Not only do they get to know the residents they serve, but if they stay through their senior year, they get a chance to have the residents return the favor via a scholarship called the Scholars’ Award.

‘Icing on the cake’
“(Cedar Crest) makes for a nice secure place to work,” says Tori Heimall, staff development manager. She hires and trains all the student servers, who service the community’s three dining rooms, café, and bistro. “It’s in a gated community, they know who they’re going to serve, the hours are superb, and we’re very flexible to students. I think it’s the best job going for students, and the scholarship is just the icing on the cake.”

First awarded in 2003, the Scholars’ Award has consistently given eligible students $1,000 a year for the duration of their studies at either a college or trade school, for a maximum of $4,000.

To be eligible for the award, the student has to be employed year-round, work 500 hours in each of their junior and senior years, and have a clean work record. The year they become a candidate, they must also complete a “thank you” video to the donating residents and attend the awards ceremony, among other activities. To keep collecting the money, the student has to show that he or she is still enrolled and taking at least twelve credit hours each semester.

Student employees

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“It really did help me,” says Knight, who was among the first class to get awards. She recently graduated from William Paterson University with a bachelor of arts in psychology. “I didn’t have to start taking loans until my junior year. It took some of the burden and worry off my parents and me. I’m really happy that I did receive it.” But the real benefit the student servers get from the job is the connections they make with the residents. “The intergenerational mix with the students and their zest for life is a great thing,” says Heimall.

“And the residents really treat the students like their own grandchildren,” helping them with their college essays and being genuinely interested in discussing the students’ ambitions and what’s going on in their lives.

Intergenerational connections
“I, for one, appreciate it,” says Blanche Blitzer, a resident who knows most of the servers. “We don’t get to see our own grandchildren that much, and we get to identify with these kids. And I’ll tell you, they really make a relationship with the residents here. We’re like their surrogate grandparents.”

The residents express their appreciation through contributions to the Scholars’ Award fund; an average of $156 per person was given to the 2007 fund by Cedar Crest’s over 1,500 residents. A fund-raising push is made every May, which includes reminders sent to each resident and a video appeal from Heimall and the students that is broadcast on the campus television station.

Growing community
Heimall projects that 30 students will receive the award in 2008. That translates to $120,000, the largest amount yet. But since every goal has been met thus far, Heimall and her staff are confident that the residents will come through again.

As for Knight, she continued to work at Cedar Crest while studying at WPU. She’ll be sad to leave what she calls her “1,500 grandparents” when she gets her first postcollege job but is happy to have had the experience. “You grow to know the (residents) individually rather than just as customers,” she says.