Critical Lifelines
Portraits & Stories of Direct Care Workers
Jennifer Lugo, Kent City, MI
Jennifer Lugo, Kent City, MI, is a Certified Nursing Assistant who is both a paid DCW and a family caregiver. She started caregiving as a teenager, with her maternal grandmother, who had cancer. She also watched her aunt take care of her grandfather with dementia…
Eva Sharpe, Lansing, MI
Eva Sharpe, Lansing, MI is a family caregiver, raised among an extended family of primarily Mexican descent that modeled caregiving for elders. She started helping her grandmother when she was age 12 and now cares for her uncle who has mild dementia. The family respite…
Richard Dusenbury, Ferndale, MI
Richard Dusenbury, Ferndale, MI has been a DCW since age 20 when he took care of his grandmother. He is a certified nursing assistant, medical assistant, photography buff, speaks fluent French, and does mission work in Ghana with his church. He’s a DCW because he…
Manila Freeman, Detroit, MI
Manila Freeman, Detroit, MI, retired from the Detroit school system as a GED specialist. Like many DCWs, she started as a family caregiver, caring for her brother, a disabled Veteran with multiple needs. After he moved in, she learned that “an agency” had signed him…
Kelli Holmgren, Battle Creek, MI
Kelli Holmgren, Battle Creek, MI started as a Certified Nursing Assistant in 1993 after a few tries as a “factory rat”. She discovered she “can’t do the mundane things over and over and over. It’s just not me. I fit helping people.” She is now…
Aria Porraz, Kalamazoo, MI
Aria Porraz, Kalamazoo, MI, self-identifies as Hispanic and is an education major at Western Michigan University. She has been working as a DCW for 2 years to pay rent while in college, plans to work with children, loves animals, reading and yoga, and works full-time…
Heather Zielinski, Belmont, MI
Heather Zielinski, Belmont, MI, a certified medical assistant who self identifies as Cherokee, loves to read and learn about history and other cultures, and feels working with people who are dying is a privilege. She has been “screamed at, spit at, sworn at, swung at,…
Sue Fierro, Lansing, MI
Sue Fierro, Lansing, MI, has been in home care for over 20 years. She entered the field because it seemed like a good fit with her desire to help people and it didn’t require a college degree. Her first experiences were frightening because she was…
Shelia Wedell, Escanaba, MI
Shelia Wedell, Escanaba, MI bubbles with life. She raises doves, is active in church with bible study and teaching Sunday school, has taken up gardening, and loves time with her grandkids. She is a self-described people person, confident, entrepreneurial, and boisterous. She got into DCW…
“Critical Lifelines” is made possible by a grant from: The Archie Green Fellowship at the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20540-4610 and with funding from: The Michigan Health Endowment Fund, 7927 Nemco Way, Brighton, MI 48116
Critical Lifelines Personnel:
- Dr. Clare Luz, Principal Investigator (PI), Director: Age Alive & IMPART Alliance, MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine
- Dr. Marsha MacDowell, Co-PI; Curator of Folk Arts, MSU Museum; Professor, Department of Art and Art History
- Khalid Ibrahim, Co-PI, Photographer; Clinical Research Informatics Technologist, MSU Biomedical Research Informatics Core/Clinical and Translational Sciences and Eat Pomegranate Photography www.eatpomegranate.com
- Katherine Hanson, Special Projects Coordinator, IMPART Alliance, MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine