They call it “heartwork,” because “if you don’t do it from the heart, it makes it hard to do,” Terrell Cannon recently told a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist about the job of a direct-care worker.

Cannon was featured in a recent column called “While helping others, investing in themselves,” which examines the work of Home Care Associates, an employee-owned cooperative and affiliate of PHI located in Philadelphia.

Cannon worked her way up to director of training after a welfare caseworker referred her to HCA in 1993, when, as metro columnist Annette John-Hall writes, Cannon was “pregnant, unemployed, and angry.”

In the following clip from HeartWork, an original theater piece performed by women who work as home health aides and certified nurse aides, Cannon performs a dramatic monologue recounting her journey from a troubled youth to a rewarding career in home health care.

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At HCA, workers like Cannon own a share of the company that entitles them to a portion of the profits and a vote at shareholders’ meetings. HCA modeled its worker-owner business after another PHI affiliate, Cooperative Home Care Associates. In business for more than 15 years, the Bronx-based business has grown into the largest worker-owned health care company in the U.S.