Jasmine Lohn, L.P.N., C.N.A., is a prime example of the interconnectedness and tradition that is Cedar Sinai Park. Her parents worked at Robison Jewish Home when Jasmine was a young girl! So did her grandmother and aunt!
“She looked just the same,” said Harold Schnitzer Center for Living Resident Joeen Rodinsky (z”l), whose mother lived at Robison in the mid-1990s and was cared for by Jasmine’s mother, Aura. “When I came her to live, I looked at her, and she said, ‘Do you know who I am? I am Aura’s daughter.’ It was immediate love. I adore her.”
Jasmine was born in California where her parents, Aura and Luis, worked at a Jewish community in Sylmar. When they moved to Oregon in 1991, they joined Robison and Jasmine remembers coming to Robison as a child. Aura’s mother Julia also worked at Robison and so did Luis’s sister, Maria.
“It was a cozy place,” remembers Jasmine. “When you walked into the reception area, they used to make cookies, and it smelled like home.
“I remember one resident in particular who used to make necklaces out of beads. She had a big sunflower on the back of her chair, and she would always come and talk to me. And I had my little dog with me.
“So I would sit there and eat the cookies that they would give me at reception, and talk with her, and she would show me her collection. She had bags and bags of beads.
“It was always really inviting.”
Jasmine occasionally read to the residents and put lotion on their hands. Later, she attended Beaverton High School and visited Robison as a teen through their Health Careers program. She said her upbringing definitely influenced her decision to go into health care.
After becoming a certified nursing assistant, she worked at West Hills Village, and then she managed a foster home.
“And then in 2010, my mom was like, ‘Come apply at Robison! We can all be together. So I ended up coming here and applying and got hired.”
Jasmine and her parents all worked at Robison together for the next eight years. She’s mainly worked on the Robison side of campus, in post-acute and rehabilitation, and the Harold Schnitzer Center for Living households.
Though Aura is mostly retired, and Luis is working closer to home, Jasmine has stayed on. She attended Portland Community College for her prerequisites to nursing school at Sumner College, but became a licensed practical nurse in 2016.
“I enjoy the residents,” she said. “The relationships that I’ve built with the residents here, especially in long term care, they’re just like family. They’re like my grandma and grandpa’s, so I really enjoy being around them. I eat dinner with them, and communicate with them about what they’re doing.
“And every morning, I go say ‘hello’ to Joeen. I let everyone know that I’m here and then do computer work until the residents are up, and it’s time to do blood sugars and meds and then make phone calls.
“We have a good team. Everyone is passionate about what they do, and they’re caring and reliable. Even when we had the last winter storm, people were staying over and working extra shifts, and being accommodating for other staff members that couldn’t come in.”
Jasmine lives near McMinnville and spent five hours on the road during the snowstorm going “23 miles an hour and taking it really slow” to get to Robison to make her shift (“I was a little late,” she confessed). Jasmine even spent a night in the Holzman household to ensure she would be here to work the following day.
In her free time, Jasmine enjoys walking and hiking with her fiance, Duncan. She has three children (Aimee, 11; Allyson, 9, and Ailis, 5), and three dogs (a pug, a standard poodle, and a St. Bernard) and Aura and Luis live a block away. “They run back and forth to help,” said Jasmine.
“It’s beautiful,” that she is here, having grown up here with her family, said Joeen. “She is the sweetest young lady. She has a special quality to her. I love Jasmine.”
Added Jasmine: “I really like it here.”
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