If I had to pick a favorite holiday, it would be the honorable Thursday each November that friends and family come together to celebrate each other. My childhood Thanksgiving table featured Mexican food, as I grew up in Texas, and there’s no other heritage we liked to celebrate more.
These days, I look at the life and career I’ve created and I’m filled to the brim with gratitude. In 2006, a friend of a friend called me about a job at Brookdale Senior Living in Brentwood, TN. They had just acquired several hundred communities, brought their external ad agency in-house, and needed to grow it fast. I came on board, and a year later, was put in charge of the creative marketing team.
That year changed my life.
I remember listening to Bill Sheriff, Brookdale’s former CEO talk humbly and quietly about what it meant to serve. I watched him visiting communities, never in a rush, always with a kind smile on his face, bending over to talk to seniors, bending over to pick up a piece of trash, bending over to give hugs.
Bill Sheriff showed what it means to love and to serve.
That love grew throughout all of Brookdale back then. We knew we were a part of something bigger. We knew that each and every one of our jobs was there to ultimately serve seniors.
A lot has changed in my life since 2006. I now co-own a rapidly growing senior marketing company with my husband. In 2016, we opened our doors and served 6 senior living communities. In 2021, we now serve over 120.
We’re a digital marketing, an advertising, a public relations, a crisis communications, a print marketing, a web design company… and we also serve. Wholeheartedly, first and foremost, we serve.
That means every decision we make is not to make money. It means every decision we make is to ensure our clients are taken care of. To go the extra mile. To support and to serve.
That’s the company we built, and today, on this week of Thanksgiving, I will forever be grateful and honored to have taken the chance back in 2016 to create Craft & Communicate, to build this with Rich, and this team of incredible, dedicated, passionate people all across the U.S.
I’m honored, and my heart is filled to the brim.
Our team will be taking tomorrow off. I plan to stuff myself with so much Mexican food in honor of those who came to this state and transformed our culinary traditions. And I plan to sit back and continue giving thanks to all of you: our team, our clients, and to all who have dedicated their lives to serving seniors.
With gratitude,
Jen Malloy
To Blair, Meredith H., Jessica, Lauren, Simi, Alex, Amie, Meredith O., Sarah, and Jordan: thank you for being on team C&C.
