When Marvin Carpenter first came to Masonic Village at Burlington in 2023, it was for a shoulder injury. He liked it so much that he’s recommended the community to roughly nine people since. So when a serious hip injury left him unable to sit, stand, or manage pain that he described as “a 20 on a scale of 1 to 10,” there was only one place he wanted to go.

Marvin is 85 years old, an Army veteran, and a retired law enforcement officer who spent years with the U.S. Postal Police in Philadelphia. He’s survived five heart attacks, two ruptured intestines, and a broken neck — the last of which he sustained catching a child thrown from a burning building. He’s not easily rattled. But his second admission to Masonic was, by his own account, one of the hardest things he’s faced.

Surgery wasn’t an option for his hip. Therapy was the path forward — and slowly, it worked. “When I first came in, I couldn’t sit like this at all and I couldn’t stand up,” he recalls. “It’s not as bad as it was.”

What kept him going, beyond his deep faith, was the way the staff made him feel. “It’s like visiting relatives,” Marvin says. “It just happens that your relatives work here. They come in, hit the door — ‘Hey Marv, how you feeling?’ That means a lot to me.” When he was transported back from Philadelphia mid-stay, a staff member recognized him the moment he came through the door. That kind of thing, he says, isn’t something you find everywhere.

His advice to others facing a similar decision is straightforward: “Find a place that makes you feel at home. If they don’t make you feel at home — even as a visitor — keep looking.”

Marvin’s still working on getting back on his feet. But he’s relaxed, he’s progressing, and he’s already thinking about what comes next — including, perhaps, taking a look at the apartments.