DeLessio is a social worker at Father Joe’s Villages and lives in Scripps Ranch.
I have been a social worker at Father Joe’s Villages for 22 exciting years. Social workers serve because they believe in the mission of their agency to help others and are motivated by the compassion shown by their co-workers. At Father Joe’s Villages, I have been driven to a mission of helping one neighbor at a time.
Growing up on the East Coast, coming to San Diego in the Navy in an era before the internet, I was not familiar with Father Joe’s Villages when I applied through the “help wanted” section in the newspaper in January 2001. What a gift it was to come into an agency with a mission grounded in “Compassion, Respect, Empathy, Empowerment and Dignity” — an ethos we lovingly call our “creed.” Click the link below to read the full essay.
