Ferne Moschella
Blacksburg – Ferne Moschella, president and chief executive officer of Warm Hearth Village since 2000, has been named the LeadingAge Virginia Vision Award recipient for 2020.
Warm Hearth Village is a nonprofit senior living community in Blacksburg that provides a full continuum of living options on our campus and in the home. It is composed of a group of affiliated corporations that work in partnership by exchanging medical and financial information to meet the changing needs of its residents and clients.
LeadingAge Virginia is the state and national trade organization for nonprofit retirement communities. It works with members to create innovative practices that transform services for the aging in America and plays an active role in representing those organizations to legislators in seeking reform of policies related to health care. Warm Hearth Village has been an active member of LeadingAge since 1981.
Each year, LeadingAge honors outstanding leaders in the industry with several key awards. The Vision Award recognizes an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to aging services and/or to the association through inspirational leadership and vision throughout his/her career. The recipient must have a distinguished record of service in nonprofit leadership and dedication in achieving his/her community’s specific goals and objectives.
Moschella has been instrumental in carrying the torch handed to her by Warm Hearth’s late founder, Wybe Kroontje. She led the effort to bring primary care services to residents who are faced with health concerns and limited in their access to achieve and maintain good health. In 2019 after years of hard work, planning, and negotiations, Carilion Clinic opened its Warm Hearth primary care practice on campus, thus providing walkable access to primary care services.
In 2013, the Village Center, a 16,000-square foot timber-framed building opened to fulfill Kroontje and Moschella’s vision. Together, they envisioned a place where residents, employees and community members could come together to laugh, learn, feast, push their physical limits, feel the weightlessness of warm salt water, support one another, engage in robust conversation and feel the joy of close community.
After 20 years of dedicated service, Moschella will retire this fall. “Ferne is the quintessential CEO who inspires the vision in all of her team members, models the way for them and really lives her values every day,” said Ed Spencer, Warm Hearth, Inc, Board of Directors Chair.
