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Welcome to “Paying it Forward,” a monthly interview series made possible by Piedmont Health. In this series, we hear from the folks at Piedmont about the importance of community health centers – and why they chose a career in community health.
This month, Aaron welcomes Stephanie Tadeo, who’s part of Piedmont’s Agricultural Worker Health Program – though she didn’t originally start there.
“I was (working) in WIC before,” she says, “and I just always saw the team coming and going…and then when they started explaining it, it was like something clicked and (I realized) this is my next step. This is what I need to do to continue to help people.”
The program provides health care for agricultural workers in central North Carolina – not only year-round residents, but also migrant workers who are in the area for a season.
“The migrant workers, they don’t know the language, they don’t know the culture, (and) most of the time they do not have transportation – so they’re pretty much cut off to the outside world,” Tadeo says. “Their employers (and) coworkers are literally the only people they ever see. We bridge that gap and we break that barrier…
“Most of the time they want to come to the doctor, but they don’t have a way to get there. We provide that transportation. We take them to their appointments. And we (can) also translate for them.”
Tadeo says her passion for health care started at an early age.
“My mother was always working in a nursing home facility,” she says. “She used to bring us into the facility a lot, especially around the holidays…(and) whenever we were there, (I saw) the way they would look at my mom whenever she walked in, the smiling faces. I think that’s where it started.”
Now, Stephanie Tadeo is the one who gets to see those smiling faces herself.
“It’s a feeling you can’t really describe,” she says.
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