Joyce’s story: Joyce is a 68-year-old local who strongly values her independence and freedom. She loves to try new foods, explore new locations, and meet new people. She says surely, “if you don’t talk, you don’t learn!” If she’s not out-and-about, Joyce can be found at home enjoying the company of her family. When her grandchildren are around, Joyce loves to read, cook, visit museums, and do crafts together. As a retired long-term substitute teacher, Joyce has a passion for education and enriching activities.
Joyce has been a client of the WISH Program since 2018 when she learned about the program through an informational WISH session held in her community. Joyce has defeated cancer twice in her life, but was still in need of help with her oral health, vision, and the complicated effects of lymphedema. Once connected with the WISH Program, Joyce began seeing great health and quality-of-life benefits thanks to help from her WISH Coach, Zarqa. Zarqa helped Joyce secure Medicaid coverage, arranged for the delivery of fresh and healthy foods straight to her door, located resources and services to help with Joyce’s dental and vision concerns, and ensured that critical medical supplies would be easily available when Joyce needed them. Joyce believes that without this critical help, she would not have been able to avoid a worsening health condition. According to Joyce, “Zarqa has also been such a great listener. I appreciate having someone to talk to who knows how to navigate my health needs. Without this help, I don’t know how I could survive.”
Joyce happily shares that since she has been a client of the WISH Program, she “feels more motivated to advocate for her own needs as well as those of others.” On sharing her success with the people around her, Joyce says “I spread the word about WISH because you never know what someone is going through. You don’t know what life is going to bring, and programs like WISH make it all better!”
The WISH Program helps seniors like Joyce remain healthy and independent by providing a Health Coach who can help them develop a health plan and connect to resources in the community. WISH, a program of the Nexus Montgomery Regional Partnership, is supported and endorsed by the six Montgomery County community hospitals. If you or someone you know is over 65, has Medicare and lives in one of the independent living facilities listed here, call 301-628-3470 to make a referral to the WISH Program.
