They have her heart and she holds her residents close.

Mandy Green is the vice president of resident services at Westminster Village in Spanish Fort.

“I manage the marketing department, chaplains, beauty shops, transportation, leisure services … I’m a resident advocate,” Green says.

She studied family and child studies in college and received a teaching certificate.

“I soon found out that really wasn’t for me,” Green says. “I talked to the department and they asked if I’d ever thought about working with the elderly with my degree.”

Green started working at a facility in Baton Rouge.

“When I talked to the company, they said they were hiring — they weren’t,” she says. I went and met them and I was hired.”

She worked in Louisiana a number of years before moving to Alabama. She is celebrating five years with Westminster Village this month.

“I think it’s a calling for me,” Green says about working with elderly citizens. “When I was younger, my friend’s parents or grandparents would say, ‘Who’s going to take care of me when I get older?’ I always thought I would. I feel like that’s what I’m doing now — taking care of them all. It just happens to be here, not there.”

Green attributes her caring and compassion to her parents.

“They taught us to respect our elders,” she says. “We were always to speak to our grandparents before we ran off and started to play.”

Green’s mother tells a story of when she was as young as nine months old.

“I left her and went to an elderly Indian woman who had deep wrinkles and started patting her face,” she says laughing. “I think it’s just in my blood.”

Green remembers sitting on her Sunday school teacher’s lap and just rubbing the wrinkles on her hand.

“I think I have this thing about wrinkles and gray hair,” she says.

Green says she got along better with older people than those in her age group.

“Those are the memories I keep,” she says. “Not so much playing with my friends, but being around my parents, friends and their elders.”

One of her favorite things to see in elderly people is when they have laugh lines on the sides of their eyes.

“It shows they’ve had a happy life — lots of smiling and laughing,” Green says.

The most rewarding part of Green’s job is her ability to help people, fix their problems.

“I love being able to make a difference in someone’s day,” she says. “If it’s someone that needs to talk or just someone to listen — I’m here. I think I’m most frustrated when I can’t fix their problems or help.”

Green’s day consists of a lot of resident traffic in and out of her office. Residents will come in to talk about anything and everything with her.

“They talk to me about things that aren’t related to Westminster Village — they may not feel well, they may have a complaint or problem, and interestingly enough, we a lot of relationship conversations. If I got to choose what I wanted to do all day, it would be to be with the residents. This job feels like I have over 200 grandparents.”