The ambulance crew already had arrived and was treating a patient outside her home on the near Eastside when Shane Hardwick, a paramedic and member of Shepherd Community Center’s Shalom Project team, pulled up to the scene.

“(The patient) had fallen off her porch and landed face first onto a concrete pad,” Hardwick said. “There was a significant amount of facial trauma reported by the ambulance crew. There was a pool of blood on the ground, several of her teeth had been knocked out, and her nose was badly damaged.

After the ambulance crew left to take the woman to a hospital, Hardwick learned that the patient was a developmentally delayed adult whose elderly mother was her primary caregiver.

He also noticed a significant safety issue — the front porch lacked handrails. It was another accident waiting to happen without an intervention. So, Hardwick contacted staff at Shepherd to ask for help.

“In true Shepherd fashion, they said they would be happy to help,” Hardwick said. “In less than a week, they were not only able to source the funding for the project, but they also scheduled a group of carpenters and handymen to do the project.”

Shepherd Director of Volunteers Donna Alexander said 12 volunteers from the Morales Group, Morales Group Staffing + Acción Performance, purchased the supplies and built the guardrails to make the front porch safe.

“Despite receiving devastating injuries and a long path to recovery, she will one day come home,” Hardwick said. “When she does, she will be able to safely sit on her porch without fear of falling.”

The Morales Group is a long-term partner with Shepherd that serves neighbors in a variety of ways. Shepherd Executive Director Jay Height noted that the partnership has meant a lot to neighbors over the years.

“Morales Group has invested so much time into the lives of our neighbors,” Height said. “Practical and compassionate are descriptors of the Morales Group.”