Just off the Erin Meadows Long-Term Care Main Street, the unmistakable notes of the famous song Unchained Melody echo from the Meadowvale neighbourhood. The voice is good — not quite Righteous Brothers level — but definitely strong.
In the neighbourhood’s common space, eight or ten residents are gathered in a semicircle in wheelchairs while team members clasp their hands and dance with them. Edgardo, a PSW who began working in the Village in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, croons into the microphone of a small karaoke machine.
Team members and residents dance while others stand and watch, smiling wide as they see the joy on Edgardo’s face matched by the smiles of the gathered residents.
It turns out this is a regular occurrence in the Meadowvale neighbourhood. Edgardo often comes in an hour before his shift starts so he can entertain the people he’s so proud to serve.
“Yes, I may start at two o’clock, but I come in at one just to sing for them,” he says after the show is over, preparing to settle in for his afternoon shift. “I thought, maybe I could share one hour with the residents. Why not? I don’t need payment. I just want to make them happy — give them something extra.”
Singing has always been a passion for Edgardo. He thinks back to his life as a young man growing up in the Philippines and how his mother always told him he had a good singing voice. Her memory is with him always.
“Before my mom died, she told me, ‘You have a good voice. I taught you how to sing.’ I put that in my heart, always,” he says. That joy is something he’s proud to share with the residents of the Village.
“Kindness from the heart — when it overflows, people feel it,” Edgardo adds. “They are my family here. Why wouldn’t you love them? Without them, I wouldn’t have this life.”
The same enthusiasm he brings to the karaoke microphone is mirrored in the way he approaches one-on-one care. In his simple words, the tone of his melody, and the genuine love he shows for the people he serves, Edgardo embodies the true spirit of the Schlegel Villages values.
