Who are Centre County’s essential worker heroes during the coronavirus pandemic?

From the hospital to the grocery stores, there are essential workers out in Centre County every day during the coronavirus pandemic. At the Centre Daily Times, we want to recognize these local heroes, and we’re asking for your help.

Do you know an essential worker on the front lines of COVID-19? An organization that’s going above and beyond during these unprecedented times? Email us at communityforum@centredaily.com with information about the worker or workers and what they’re doing. We’d love to see photos are videos, too.

Are you an essential worker who has a story to share? Let our readers know what it’s like in your job, what you’re seeing and what you need.

Below are stories that have been shared with us, and will be updated throughout the statewide stay-at-home order put in place by Gov. Tom Wolf.

Centre Crest employees

At Centre Crest we have 280 employees that are dedicated and committed to making sure our residents are safe and well taken care of. Not just during this pandemic, but EVERYDAY. We want to give a shout out to each and every one of our employees. Every day they make a difference. They each have stepped up during this challenging time and have worked together as a team to keep the residents connected with their families and loved ones. They have taken extra precautions to keep themselves and our Residents safe and healthy. We want to thank them for being our heroes.

-Autumn Hannagan, business development specialist, Centre Crest

Rich Olsen

We have an unsung hero at Mammoth Restoration whom I’d love to highlight. Rich Olsen is a longtime Mammoth employee. When coronavirus began intruding into our daily lives, Rich wanted to find a way to protect those who protect our community. His idea was to provide COVID-19 sanitization to the local fire companies as a way to keep them safe and give their families peace of mind.

Rich took his idea to Mammoth’s owner, Mike Bevilacqua. Mike jumped at the idea and readily agreed that Mammoth Restoration would be honored to provide this service to the fire companies. Rich has been leading the efforts and has personally sanitized and fogged over 25 companies to date. “Rich has a big heart and is always ready to help friends and colleagues. The fact that this is his idea is no surprise at all,” according to Bevilacqua.

Most of our area firefighters are volunteers. Many have been laid off from their full-time jobs. They are still giving their time to protect our community. Rich says,”I want to do something to help take care of them so they can continue to protect our area’s homes and businesses”

Rich is a true unsung hero. He is a quiet inspiration to all.

-Kendra Kielbasa, commercial accounts representative, Mammoth Restoration

Accuweather staff

Right here in State College we have a team of dedicated people that work 24/7, 365 days a year, without fail, to keep people safe and protected from dangerous weather. I would like to salute my colleagues who are showing up every day during this pandemic to provide lifesaving forecasts and warnings so people can make the best weather-impacted decisions for the greatest levels of safety and protection.

While it is generally recognized that AccuWeather provides weather forecasts to the general public through our website, apps and 24/7 national network channel and through media clients and partners, many people do not know that we also provide critical weather information to governments, officials and emergency management agencies. The Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have specifically designated weather forecasters as essential infrastructure and as such, AccuWeather an essential, life-sustaining business.

Now, more than 90 percent of our team members are working from home. The remaining are performing this essential work on-site for the nation, doing critical on-site tasks that cannot be performed remotely. All day, every day, and especially prior to the recent bouts of severe weather across the U.S., our meteorologists, broadcasters, news writers, editors, graphics and facilities people are on site in small groups, doing their part to protect lives from tornadoes, wind gusts, dangerous lightning, flooding rain and other hazardous weather. Skeleton crews on site are supported by their colleagues at home, many of them working long hours to help.

I am routinely in awe of these people I have the privilege of working alongside daily who care deeply about the safety of others. Tornadoes do not stop for COVID-19. Neither do my AccuWeather colleagues. Stay safe everyone.

-Rhonda Seaton, director, marketing communications

Leanne Lenz

Centre Helps has been operating a hotline to help any Centre County resident in need since 1972. The hotline is always manned 24 hours-a-day and 365 days-a-year — all by volunteers. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck our town so swiftly, we had a crisis. The hotline volunteers are mostly Penn State students and almost overnight the majority of our them were gone.

Immediately, Centre Helps Executive Director Leanne Lenz Developed a plan to keep the hotline operating. Because of the pandemic, the people we serve needed us more than ever, so the pressure to keep operating was enormous. She rearranged our entire operation and came up with a plan to cover calls remotely. Leanne had to balance protecting our volunteers and employees while at the same time keeping the hotline running without disruption.

Leanne is absolutely an essential worker hero. Without her leadership the hotline could have gone offline and eliminated a valuable resource for all the residents of Centre County. I’m proud of Leanne because she was able to rise to a higher level of leadership and strength under the most difficult of circumstances.

-Nabil Mark, Centre Helps vice president

Metzger Animal Hospital team

I wanted to recognize the outstanding team at VCA Metzger Animal Hospital for their compassion and courage during this pandemic. Our pets are truly critical family members that we cling to, especially in difficult times like the present.

The 65-member team at VCA Metzger Animal Hospital works day and night to keep your furry family members healthy, especially if an emergency arises, which occurs frequently when you are a 24-hour emergency hospital. Our staff risks their lives so we can stay open to help pets in need. I applaud their courage and salute all health care workers and the other heroes who make sacrifices to help people and pets! Thank you!

-Dr. Fred Metzger

Christina Richtscheit

Proud of our daughter Christina working at the American Red Cross in downtown State College.

-James Richtscheit

Megan Schaper

State College School District Food Service Director Megan Schaper has worked tirelessly these past few weeks developing and implementing our plan to serve over 10,000 meals to students in our area every week. As one of her employees and an employee of the State College School District, making sure our students who need breakfast and lunch in our area has been a challenging and rewarding experience and I can speak for every SCASD food service employee involved in saying we are proud to work for someone with incredible leadership skills in dealing with this important work. Our district was well prepared to handle serving our district students and it is in large part to her hard work and dedication.

-Travis Folmar, SCASD elementary cafeteria supervisor

Direct support professionals

I’d like to tip my hat to all direct support professionals working long hours right now supporting individuals with intellectual disabilities in Centre County. Many individuals we support are really struggling with the quarantine — many do not understand why they can’t go to day program, or shopping, or to see their friends.

Direct care professionals are working harder than ever to support these individuals right now. Thanks to all of the amazing staff at Sunny Days, as well as Strawberry Fields, The Arc and Skills. I’d also love to tip my hat to CSG’s CRR program (a residential home setting with DSP’s) and also their psych rehab program supporting individuals with mental health diagnoses by phone/video for the time being.

-Alexis Wilson, program specialist — residential supervisor, Sunny Days Adult Daily Living Center

Cintas SSRs

I’d like to recognize the Cintas route service sales representatives that show up daily to make sure other essential employees all over Pennsylvania have clean uniforms, towels, mops, hand soap, sanitizer, and paper products so they can be ready for their workday. You guys are awesome!

-Joana Marquette, Cintas Corporation

Brian Bittner

Brian is the director of emergency management for Penn State. Brian has been leading the efforts on PSU’s response and recovery actions to the COVID-19 pandemic. Leading a team of five other emergency managers, his team is supporting a university-wide response, especially to the commonwealth campuses.

-submitted by Alex Craige, emergency management coordinator at Penn State

This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 8:15 AM.