DECATUR - When Sandra Clendenen makes a bed, she doesn't just pull up the covers and smooth out the wrinkles.

First, she takes off the bedclothes and fluffs them.

Extra touches like this are what the recipients of Clendenen's care like about her. "Sandy makes a good bed for me," said Hosie Duckworth, 83, of Decatur. "She takes time to sit down and talk."

They are also why the Latham woman, a home care provider for nearly eight years for the Community Home Environmental Learning Project in Decatur, was one of five winners in Illinois this year of the Mary I. Hill Homecare Aide of the Year Award.

The award is a first for CHELP, which has been nominating a home care provider for the annual recognition by the Illinois Association of Community Care Program Homecare Providers for at least 10 years.

"Sandra does a fantastic job for us," said Kathy Stark, a homemaker supervisor for the agency. "She's the kind of worker who goes above and beyond for her clients."

Those eight clients agree. One man said when Clendenen is around, he feels like his mother is there. "She makes sure I eat well and takes care of my cleaning and laundry," he said.

"She brightens my day," a woman said. "When we go to the store, she knows exactly what I want."

These are among the comments Stark and fellow homemaker supervisor Leslee Ferguson gathered for the letter they wrote nominating Clendenen.

On a recent Friday morning, she brought Duckworth a cup of coffee from McDonald's because she knew he was out of instant coffee, and neither had had the chance to buy more.

"The people I take care of are people, too," Clendenen said. "They don't belong in a nursing home, sitting in a wheelchair in the hall with people walking by and not even saying hi."

Her belief leads her to pay attention to what people in her care like and need and also what they don't like and don't need as she cooks and cleans for them, helps some with personal grooming and drives them to doctor's appointments.

Clendenen, 60, has a long history of care giving that began when she was growing up in upstate New York and helped her mother care for an elderly neighbor. Now divorced, she also raised two daughters and at various times in her life cooked for a college fraternity, worked at a laundry and took care of two grandsons.

Because Duckworth is going blind, Clendenen takes care to keep things in the same place so he can find them, right down to putting the bacon on the left side of his plate when she serves him breakfast and leaving his pajamas on the bench by his bed after folding them.

When she occasionally coaxes him outside for a short walk, they move together with long familiarity. "Get my cap," he says, and she grabs one and asks if it's the one he wants before handing it to him.

She then takes his left arm while he supports his right side with a cane.

"I try to do the right thing," Clendenen said later. "I try to make people feel special because they are."

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