Masonic Village at Sewickley in Sewickley, Pa., has started offering scholarships to dining workers to help with the ongoing staffing shortage, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
The idea for the scholarships came from Masonic Village residents, who formed a dining services scholarship committee with the community’s executive director.
The committee was able to raise over $63,000 in the first six months of the campaign and awarded $4,000 scholarships to 11 servers.
Servers must have worked at least 312 hours in order to qualify for a scholarship. They also had to submit an application with a short essay and had to be accepted or enrolled at a college.
In the first three months after announcing the scholarship program, five new servers were hired.
The committee hopes to continue the program annually.
As senior-living communities continue to face staffing issues, some have also turned to robots to help make up for lack of staff.