"Building a Business That Cares" - Latoyia Woodard - Episode 620

So I'm originally from Michigan.

I've been living in Chippewa County for 20 years.

I relocated to Bloomer about eight years ago, and I became a family caregiver for my sibling.

He had a stroke.

He was unable to walk.

He's nonverbal.

And when I brought him here, I learned of a lot of the resources for family caregivers because I had no idea how much went into taking care of someone 24 hours a day, as well as the resources in the area that could help me.

And I think a lot of family caregivers feel that they have to take it all on themselves to figure it out.

And I just wanted to do something.

Go 20 years back, right? Yes.

Because you weren't, what's your profession?

My profession has been both finance and health care for the last 20 years.

I kind of did double duty.

I worked at the bank by day and several nursing facilities by night.

And I definitely had more passion in helping people.

Finance makes sense.

Numbers always make sense.

But helping people and having empathy and compassion when people are at their most vulnerable speaks to who I

am.

When you were a little girl growing up, did you always have that or is it something that you had to learn through a life change?

I think I grew up kind of in a caregiver role.

My other sibling was diagnosed with a brain tumor at 18 years old.

So a lot of his life was going through rehab and learning how to walk again, learning how to talk again.

So it was always a part of my life.

I kind of grew up in various therapy sessions and things like that.

So I'm originally from Michigan.

I've been living in Chippewa County for 20 years.

I relocated to Bloomer about eight years ago, and I became a family caregiver for my sibling.

He had a stroke.

He was unable to walk.

He's nonverbal.

And when I brought him here, I learned of a lot of the resources for family caregivers because I had no idea how much went into taking care of someone 24 hours a day, as well as the resources in the area that could help me.

And I think a lot of family caregivers feel that they have to take it all on themselves to figure it out.

And I just wanted to do something.

Go 20 years back, right? Yes.

Because you weren't, what's your profession?

My profession has been both finance and health care for the last 20 years.

I kind of did double duty.

I worked at the bank by day and several nursing facilities by night.

And I definitely had more passion in helping people.

Finance makes sense.

Numbers always make sense.

But helping people and having empathy and compassion when people are at their most vulnerable speaks to who I

am.

When you were a little girl growing up, did you always have that or is it something that you had to learn through a life change?

I think I grew up kind of in a caregiver role.

My other sibling was diagnosed with a brain tumor at 18 years old.

So a lot of his life was going through rehab and learning how to walk again, learning how to talk again.

So it was always a part of my life.

I kind of grew up in various therapy sessions and things like that.