Care Team Bios

Sandra Moore-Giles

Sandra More-Giles has spent most of her life caregiving. Inspired by her own experience as an adoptee, Sandra adopted 4 children and served as a foster parent for 106 more. In 1975 Sandra became a chaplian and spent years working in the prison system as well as nursing homes and currently directs the food pantry in her church. After decades of caring for so many others, Sandra now needs support herself but has struggled to find and retain home care workers due to a workforce shortage. Sandra understands the need for higher wages to attract more workers to the home care profession and is a leader in Hand in Hand's New York Caring Majority Campaign.

Ethel Jones-Bowman

Ethel Jones-Bowman was born in Alabama and has lived in New York since 1975. Ethel's first job was in a nursing home, but after seeing how patients were treated, she quickly moved into home care. Ethel has felt the impact of low pay throughout her career, at times earning as little as $8.50 per hour. In addition to her home care work, Ethel works as a school bus monitor with children with disabilities. Ethel has 3 children and 14 grandchildren, is an active member of Point of Praise Church, and volunteers to support soccer and basketball activities for her grandkids. Ethel is active with the New York Caring Majority and Hand in Hand, and regularly speaks publicly about her experiences as a home care worker as well as meets with elected officials.

Cindy Childs

Cindy Childs was born and raised in Kingston, New York. She is a volunteer caregiver for her dear friend Sandra Moore-Giles and, in the past, provided care for her parents when they both underwent surgery at the same time. She has worked at Walmart for 16 years and also works for Door Dash. Cindy is an active leader at Point of Praise Church, the mother of a 20-year old daughter who is in college, is part of a Soul-Line Dance group and loves bowling, scrabble and volleyball.

Interview Transcript

Sandra Moore-Giles: My name is Sandra Moore Giles, I am a chaplain for the prisons in New York State. I love what I do.

Ethel Jones-Bowman: My name is Ethel Mae Jones-Bowman. For 32 years I've been an aid. I met Sister Giles and I've worked with her for two and a half years.

Sandra Moore-Giles: Ethel is not even on payroll cause Ethel was my aid for two and a half years. She'll come and just give me a hand. But she's not on payroll at this time. Even when she did, she had other clients because her and me just just servicing me for my twenty one hours a week is very caring and she'll do even when she's hurting.

Ethel Jones-Bowman: I call Miss Jane. She's a very lovely person. She'd do anything like when I needed help. She was there for me. She'd done a lot for me. She was my mentor. She was my mom. She was my A one person.

Sandra Moore-Giles: Caregiving for me means to help you live longer and to help you to be productive in your life. You need somebody to help you to do the things that needs to be done with your body. So when you don't have that person, you have to do the best that you can.

Ethel Jones-Bowman: I'm a type of person. If I go in and I see they're not being taken care of, if I could get one smile after I did my work, I must have done a good job. I go be on and be on like I did Sister Giles I did for her, even the days that I was at work. And she needed my help. I came to her and help her. That's just the type of person I am. I would help anybody.

Sandra Moore-Giles: This Time it's been almost since covid. I have not had a caregiver. I may get one maybe once a week or twice a week. But nobody's days is very hard not having someone to come in, because when I have the gout and other things going on with my body, people come in and they don't know what we go through and how hard it is for people to really be able to have care. They rather put people in a nursing home then to pay the money.

Ethel Jones-Bowman: When I start caring for people, I start working in a nursing home it was Hutton nursing home. The reason why I left Hutton nursing home, because they really didn't take care that people like I think they should. Back in the day when people was acting up they use to tie people come in in the morning and you smell poop, and you smell urine. And I said, maybe I'll go into home, care

Sandra Moore-Giles: for one thing, they need to be able to pay people more. And you have people that really need it. The lady that live across from me, she's one hundred years, one hundred and one. And she needs home care. She needs care. We struggle with that. It's really a challenge even to shower and dress yourself when you don't have no one to come in. Care workers are paid so little they are not able to make the ends meet. This bill needs to be passed because they need to be more responsible for us and me being on the board with the Office for the Aging. I won't be silent anymore. They have to know the needs of the people I've always been a worker, always been independent. But now there's things that I can't do and I need help, I feel like they need the help and do it.

Ethel Jones-Bowman: It will accomplish a lot of people to work for the agency, hopefully, especially with the income that they get. And I'm praying that it will get better, especially for the aids. People getting paid in a nursing home. Eighteen dollars an hour and people are getting paid home care can pay like ten to 11.50 an hour. And I don't think it's fair.

Sandra Moore-Giles: That's the giving and the caring is people want to be they don't want to feel like they are forgotten. And a lot of times, a lot of times being, older, you feel like you being forgotten and people don't care about you. And it shouldn't be that way. And I don't want people I don't want people to feel like that. I want them to know that they still cared for. So I think for Ethel, Cindy and all of them, that, you know, I thank God for my church family. I just pray that what we are doing would not be in vain. I really pray that the politicians and those that we put in office will take in be responsible and see what's going on and know that they have a responsibility to service us.