National Recognition

• LEC has been designated a National Model Adult Day Care Center by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
  Partners in Caregiving and serves as a national teaching center.
• LEC’s Student Respite Program was featured in the publication Managing Senior Care and on a PBS documentary entitled No Place Like Home. 
• LEC's Dover "Healing Garden" was featured in the publication Design Environments for Aging 2008 and on a PBS special GardenStory: Inspiring Spaces, Healing Places.
•  LEC was designated a "teaching center" for adult day centers receiving North Carolina Start-Up Grant Awards.
•  LEC received the North Carolina Non-Profit Center’s highest award, the Non-Profit Sector Stewardship Award, for exemplary stewardship of resources entrusted to the organization.

For her work to establish and direct the Life Enrichment Center Adult Day Care, Executive Director Suzi Kennedy has been honored by:

• 1995 - Distinguished Woman of the Year by the Cleveland County Commission for Women for work with Alzheimer’s patients and their families
• 1998 - Athena Award as Cleveland County, N.C., Business Woman of the Year
• 2002 - N.C. Foothills Merry-Go-Round Award for “exemplary achievement in adult day care”
• 2003 - Ruth Von Behren Pioneering Spirit and Leadership Award from National Adult Day Services Association
• 2004 - Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian honor given by N.C.’s governor
• 2008 - Star of Excellence Award presented by the North Carolina Adult Day Services Association

LEC Nurse Karen Bridges was named 2009 Dementia Care Professional of the Year by the Alzheimer's Foundation of America. This national award is presented to those who go beyond what is required to provide specialized care for those diagnosed with dementia and their caregivers.