Family ties are strong, and Ava Devitte is back where it all started for her when she was just a kid. She’s been around SAV-ON most of her life, since her father and uncle own the business.
It’s a family affair for the Devitte family. Her father, mother, sister, and brother have all worked there at one time or another, as well as her uncle, aunt, and cousins.
Her first ‘job’ at SAV-ON was as a young girl, dressing up with her cousin, Juliette, as Santa’s elves. They helped Santa with the kids that came into the office to tell the jolly old elf what they wanted for Christmas.
Fast forward about five years and Ava and Juliette were hired to scan existing customer files and policies to be stored electronically. 15 years old at the time, they were interviewed together for this newsletter in February 2017.
Ava was attending Kennedy Catholic High School and playing lacrosse for the school’s team, while Juliette attended Federal Way High. After graduation, Ava chose the University of Washington and graduated last June with a degree in Political Science/Political Economy and a minor in Law Studies.
While she was attending the UW, she got a job working at a senior living home near the campus and worked there for two years.
“I had 100 grandparents there, she muses. “I gave the residents lots of hugs. They were such nice people! I liked 99 percent of them.”
She learned a lot working there, including end-of-life issues, as some of the residents died of COVID-19 and then the Norovirus. “It was difficult when you grew to like them and then they passed away,” she recalls sadly.
In addition to her senior living job, she also was a member of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority at the university and volunteered as the Parent Relations Director for three years. That position involved fostering communication between parents and students and helping organize parent weekends at the UW.
One of her favorite experiences during her time in college was spending a summer in Denmark working on three different farms. Growing vegetables at the first two farms and feeding the animals as well as harvesting vegetables at the third farm. “I loved the experience,” she exclaims. “It was so much fun!”
But, after graduating from Washington in June, she soon found herself back at familiar haunts, working at SAV-ON’s Des Moines office once again doing scanning and collating.
For the time being she’s content to help out at SAV-ON. She prides herself on her adaptability.
“I do pretty good coping with change,” she states. “I like to just ‘go with the flow’.”
Part of that ‘flow’ will be figuring out in the next few years what her career will be. In the meantime, she’s happy to be back at the family business and “going with the flow”.
