What is it like to live in Pennsylvania

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. My name is Luciana Da Silva. I am in for Tanya Freedman today. She is traveling probably once again flying right over you. Today is onward and upwards. It is Friday. Today we're going to be talking about the great state of Pennsylvania. I am joined with Patricia and Joy. Hello from Penn State health. How are you both doing today? I'm good. Good. Everybody in the chat, please type in your name, where you're from, and we would absolutely love to say hello. We have Mohammed, who is from Nigeria. Aldrin from Fort Myers, Florida. Good morning, South America. That's from Pascali. So wonderful people all over the world here joining us today to talk about Pennsylvania. But first I want to start out with some guest introductions. Hello, chantal from Jamaica. People are still saying hello. Let's go ahead and get to the guest introductions. Here we have two wonderful people from Penn State health in Pennsylvania.Penn State health is actually one of Connetics USA's clients. Let's start with Patricia. Patricia, hello. Please introduce yourself. Hi, my name is Patricia, and I work at Pennsylvania. I was a travel nurse. I came to the United States in 2004. It's good to be here. Thank you. My name is Joy Melinda. I am one of the managers in one of the clinics with Penn State health. I came to the United States in March of 2003, and I've been here since then. Where are you from originally? I'm originally from the Philippines. From the Philippines. Wonderful. Well, it's so great to have you on the day.

So let's get started and let's see. We have historic I don't know if I'm saying that right, from Bermuda. Ethel is here from the Philippines. Lao from the Philippines. Seon is from Nigeria. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Please put your questions in the chat throughout the show. We really like for this to be interactive so that we can ask these wonderful nurses some questions about the great state of Pennsylvania.

So let's start with Patricia. Why did you decide to come to the United States? Well, it's an interesting story because my plans was never to come to the United States. Really? But one day I was working on my unit and turned out on to be and one of my friends said, hey, Patricia, there is a company that looking for this is to come to the United States. And I was like and they were like, you should come with us. So I ended up going to that, and here I am. That's wonderful then. Exactly. Joy, what about you? Why did you decide to come to the United States? Well, as for me, it's known everywhere the Filipino nurses go outside the country for work. So I've worked in Pakistan, where my husband is from, and I've worked in Yemen in the middle east for like a year. And those I did while I was waiting to apply for the United States, as my application was processing, I was doing those job in the other countries. And then eventually the processing happened and the one for here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was the one that opened first. That's how I came about. And why did you choose Pennsylvania? How did you get to Pennsylvania? For me, actually, I had a few options. One was in Florida and Orlando in Florida, and then the one for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The one for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the agency actually process faster. So then they showed us different brochures and all that and information about the city and the area. And I kind of liked it with the different seasons. And I said, maybe that's a good place to go. And then when we came here, then you just see whatever and feel whatever. Quite the feeling I'm seeing here in the Chat that Delvey says that we are not audible. If you can hear us, well, please give us a thumbs up in the Chat or a heart so that we can check the audio because of course, we want everyone to hear us. If you can hear us, give us a thumbs up. If you can't, thumbs down, but we're going to keep going in the meantime. Joy, why did you decide that Harrisburg was a good place for me? Really? It was because the agency was very fast in processing, and then I looked at different information brochure that was given to us. It had a lot of information about Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and then knowing that it's the area that you can travel anywhere from that city because it really has all the interstate, that was one of the big thing that we liked too. Me and my husband was kind of looking at all those information, so it was a good thing to choose this area. Patricia, what about you? How did you get to Pennsylvania and tell us that story? Well, all three of us, two, myself and my two friends, we wanted to be together. So actually, Pennsylvania was that state where we all got to go to the same hospital. And also I was looking for a city where the crime was low at that time because I have three kids. Pennsylvania is very in the area that I'm in, it's very conservative and it was safe for my kids. So that's one of the reasons why I decided to come here.

And as Joyce said, it's close to all the other cities. We love Baltimore and Washington and Philly. You could get there pretty quickly and then come back to Harrisburg. So, yes, it was for a lot of reasons, but mostly because I could be with my friends and it was a good place for my family. Had you heard about Pennsylvania before? Your friend said, Hey, let's go. And history, everybody knows about Philly. It doesn't matter where you live in the world. You hear Philadelphia at least one time in your life. So, yes, a little bit. But when I decided to come here, I had to do some research to see what's around. And of course, we always talk about this, but having Hershey Park really close by was also an incentive as well for the kids. That Hershey's chocolate. The little kisses right there. Well, we have a treat right now for our viewers.

Let's play a game. It is the Pennsylvania Fun Facts game. If you are ready to answer some questions, please type in the chat. Ready and we will start. And of course, you at home. Please answer the questions. Let's see how much we know about the state of Pennsylvania. So let's start out question number one. Philadelphia is home to the famous blank sandwich. Please type in the chat. Is it the club sandwich, the cheese steak sandwich, peanut butter and jelly, which is really, really yummy. We are seeing some answers here. Jessa is saying good club sandwich. Ethel says the beef Philly cheesesteak sandwich. I've got another chat here also saying the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Joy, do you know the answer? What do you guess? My favorite Philly cheese steak. Patricia? Yeah, that's what I would say, too. Absolutely. It is the Philly cheesesteak sandwich. By the way, Philadelphia has a nickname, and it is Philly philly cheesesteak sandwich. It is filled with beef and cheese. It is absolutely delicious. A lot of people here in the Chat got that right. Well done.

Question number two, and the question is, did you know which Pennsylvania city was once the capital city of the United States? Is it Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, or Scranton? Which Pennsylvania city was once the capital of the United States? We're looking back at US. History here. Is it Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, or Scranton? Please put your answers in the chat and let's have some fun. Oh, great. We have lots of answers here. I'm seeing Philadelphia. Pittsburgh. We have quite the mix.

Patricia, do you know the answer to this one? I would think it's Philadelphia. I'm not quite sure. Joy, that's me too. I think it's Philadelphia. Let's see the answer. Philadelphia. Well done. And in the Chat, the majority of people all said Philadelphia. Melanes, Marco Deanna. Wonderful job.

Last question, number three. This famous Oscar winning Pennsylvania native has saved the world multiple times on the big screen. It's a little bit of a more difficult question. So it is a famous actor who has won an Oscar, Pennsylvania native.

And this person has saved the world multiple times on the big screen. See some answers here. We're getting quite the mix. Quite the mix. All right, let's see the answer. The drum roll, please. Oscar winning Pennsylvania native is Will Smith. Pennsylvania native as well. Well done, everybody in the chat. Thank you so much for playing along.

Back to the questions. Patricia, where exactly in Pennsylvania do you live? Tell us a little bit about your city. So I live on the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. More in Lingus town area. It's more or less like a suburban area, quiet, just away from the city. What I like about it is that I can leave here and get every where quickly. Within 50 minutes, 20 minutes. I can go to Walmart, I can go to Sam's Club, I can go to Mall. So it's kind of central to everything. But if I just want to sit at home and look at the mountains, I can walk around in my area. So, yeah, that's where I live. More in the outskirts of the city.

What about the nearest airport? Is it close by the airport there? How do you fly in and out? Yeah, well, I just don't really use the local airport a lot. I usually drive to Baltimore or New Jersey or New York because they're pretty close. First answer fingerprint to unlock the device. Oh, somebody's alarm. Yes, we do have an airport. The airport is like 25 minutes from my house, so if you like to use the local airport, you can. But we usually take, like, day trips, stay at a hotel overnight, then go fly to wherever we need to go. So I like to go to other studies. Things are very accessible.

Joy, tell us what are some fun things to do around where you live. What do you do for fun? Well, for me, I do a lot of walking and hiking. So here I also live in this suburban area around Harrisburg, and there's a lot of hilly areas, rivers and hiking trails that you can go to do your walk and hiking.

What about some other attractions nearby in other states? Joy well, attractions, you can go to Baltimore, Maryland, and that's where the Inner Harbor is. And they have a lot of boat rides, all kinds of attractions in that area. Then you can go to Washington, DC. And then Hershey Park is actually very near me, like five to ten minutes away. Then Philadelphia. There's a lot of historic areas. There buildings and all the parts of the history. Then Gettysburg also very rich with the history of the United States. Lancaster is where the Amish County is, and you see the lifestyle of the Amish people in there. Wonderful.

And Patricia, we know that you have kids. Where do you take your kids for some fun? It's a family friendly area. Yeah. So when my kids were younger, we love to go what we call zoo. Hop in. So we have, like, the zoo in Philly. Baltimore, we go to Washington, and we also love all the museums. Like, if you love museums, Washington is the place to be. Very beautiful, very historic, and you can learn a lot. We also like to go to caves. There are some close by here. There are tons of stuff to do. I didn't hike a lot. My kids loved hiking, so they would go with their friends. But I didn't do a lot of hiking like Joy. But yeah, there are zoos and parks, tons of parks in Pennsylvania if you love that. Just a variety of stuff to do.

Joy, when you first go to Pennsylvania, what surprised you? What really surprised me here as I stayed longer, when spring I came in March of 2003. So that was still like the end part of winter. So when spring came, oh my goodness, the allergy season started and it was just so bad. And I never had very difficult allergies back home in the Philippines when I came here. It's just so bad. So when it's springtime, that's when allergy season starts. That was the most surprising thing for me when I came here. But I'm still here. It seems like Patricia might be happy. Oh, there she is.

Welcome back, Patricia. And while we're doing that, I want to say welcome to other people that have just joined us. We have Franklin, who is here today, aiken Pilolole, which is a person from Nigeria, people from all over the world.

Here Patricia, joy was talking about allergies. But let's talk some more about the climate in Pennsylvania. What is it like there? Let's say right now it's pretty good. I think it's similar to the climate that I experienced when I was home in Trinidad and Tobago. So it's not too bad. I like all of the seasons except for the winter. It's very tough for me. But looking at snow on the ground is also very beautiful. So you have good things about it. But yeah, it's nice though. It's sunny. I wish I could show you through my window here. It looks pretty good. Everything. It's warm and you can go for walk sometimes. It can be a little humid, but we can manage that. It's wonderful. And the fall is absolutely gorgeous from what I understand as well.

Joy, you were saying that you enjoyed all the seasons. Tell us about what is fall like in Pennsylvania. Fall is very beautiful. You can see the different colors of the trees. That's when it changes colors and then it's just beautiful. The weather is very nice. I think one of the best seasons. I like the fall and the springtime, except for the allergies for the spring. But fall is very beautiful. And a lot of people that would drive coming into the area love to see that. Like if you're driving around the mountains and you see all the different colors of the trees, it's just like a painting. Absolutely beautiful. Especially whenever you have all of those mountains there snow. You were saying it's cold. We're not used to snow.

Patricia's from Trinidad, my goodness. And it's all beautiful, but you can go and make snow angels and snowball fights. Be a little careful, but it's not painful if you get hit. But it really is beautiful. Go there and build snowman.

Patricia, is that how you felt whenever you saw your first big snow in Pennsylvania or was it something that surprised you? I was expecting it, but if you know me at all, you would know that even in my office, like right now, even though it's warm out, I'm always cold. So I probably shouldn't be the one to be speaking about this because I'm a little different in that area because I'm always cold. It doesn't matter. It's summer and the AC is on and here I might have a heater on. Yes. So it did surprise me a little, I guess, how cold it was, but I was expecting it a little bit. I feel like I have my toughest time probably in the winter, but my kids love it. They love the snow, they love to dress up during the winter. They love the clothing. So it's doable. Having a white Christmas. It's like you can take the girl out of Trinidad, but you can't take the Trinidad out of the girl. Right? That's the saying that we have here in the United States. And thinking about that, everybody loves to shop in the United States. All over the world people love to shop. But in the United States we have shopping malls, every single sort of store you could imagine.

Joy, do you like to shop? And what is the shopping like? Shopping here in Pennsylvania, there's a lot of malls. Just here in Harrisburg there's a few close by and in the nearer cities they have different outlet stores. Outlets is a big thing here because mostly everything is on sale. Even the luxury brands are on sale. Then here in Pennsylvania, probably about an hour and a half drive, is where you can see King of Prussia Mall, which is one of the biggest malls in the United States. So shopping is pretty good here in Pennsylvania. Enjoy.

Have you had a chance to talk about traveling outside of Pennsylvania? What are some of the nearest attractions that you can drive to that might not necessarily be in the state? Where else have you gone in that area? You just go down southern area. Maryland is very close by. Then Delaware is right on the east than Virginia. As I was close to Maryland, I've gone to Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey. I've even taken a train to New York City. We've driven up north towards the Erie side. Where that lake beautiful. Lake Erie is a little bit farther, but beautiful. So the other states around are like really new York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.

Patricia, do you need a car in Pennsylvania to get around or are there trains? What's the transportation like? So where I live here, yes, I do need a car. Although if you have to rely on public transportation, you probably could. You just have to figure out where they would drop you off. When we first came to us, we didn't have a car, so we relied on public transportation. We just have to get up a little earlier to get the bus and so forth. So you can do that. It depends on where you live, though. But if you live in the outskirts, you probably would need to drive. Yes.

Joy, you were also saying that you take trains here and there. Where do the trains go and how long does it take usually to get to all these different places? So you can do a train ride from here in Harrisburg to, like, Philadelphia. It takes probably like 30, 40 minutes to do that, and it's cheaper than driving. And then you can also take the train to New York, new York City from here. So from Harrisburg, it goes to Philadelphia, changes, I think the engine changes, and then it goes from Philadelphia to New York City. When my mom was here, she took the train from here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, all the way to I think she visited her friends in Chicago. So you can really take the Amtrak train all over the United States.

Patricia, when you've been traveling around, where else in the United States have you gone, and where is your favorite area? You've been here for quite a while, so I feel you can get Luciana where my favorite area is.

How about Florida? So that's where we love. We love to go to Florida. We love Orlando. We love Miami. Sometimes we would drive. It takes us 14 hours from Harrisburg to drive to Orlando. We would do that. Our last trip, we drove from Harrisburg to the Keys in Florida took us like, what, 23, 24 hours? But we love to drive. So if you love to do stuff like that right now, with the gas prices, you probably have to think about it a little bit. But, you know, it's fun. If you want a fun vacation, lots of stuff to do. All the states, you can just go to any state that you'd like to go. I've driven to Texas. It took a long time to get there. We've driven there. We've driven to Atlanta, Georgia. We've visited a couple of places, and it's always fun. But if you would like to fly there, you also can. But I love to have day trips and just take the family in the car and stop off somewhere and decide, we have no idea where we're going to stay tonight, but just find the hotel. I have to say that that's one of the cool things about the United States is so many places in the world, cars are not necessary. There's wonderful transportation. There are trains and buses, and it's all very efficient. But about the United States, the highways, when you hit the highway, right, life is a highway. It is true. You put the windows down and you just ride and you just drive. And the highway system is really awesome because you can go anywhere. If you saw that map of the United States, all of those red lines that are going through there. Those are major highways. So as Patricia was saying, you can literally just get on the highway, and from Pennsylvania, you go through the Appalachian Mountains. The Florida Keys, where Patricia was just talking about is way down at the very tip past Miami and going over a bunch of bridges. So in the United States, you can literally get in the car and ride wherever it is that you want to go.

Joy, tell us about your road trips. Do you go on road trips? We do. My husband loves road trips, so we do a lot of road trips just within Pennsylvania.

But then we also did probably been like, five years now. We went to Nova Kosha, Canada, to go to the beaches there, because the beaches are very quiet, pristine, and very beautiful. So we drove all the way from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, passing through all the different northeastern states on the northeast side of United States until we reach Canada, cross the border and looped around until we reach Nova Scotia. It's really weird to think that you go to Canada. Fort beach, that's the beauty of North America. There are beaches and mountains all over the place. Exactly. I actually have a question here now, coming from Melvin, how much usually are the house rents in Harrisburg?

Joy, let's start with you. House runs around Harrisburg, so within the inner city of Harrisburg, it's pretty expensive, but the rooms are smaller. The total house area is a little bit smaller, but they're more expensive around. Maybe now it's over $1,000 to like, $1,500 for the inner area of Harrisburg City. As you go outer to the suburb areas, depending on the apartments. If it's more of the lower scale apartments, then probably around 1800 you could still find and then the more luxurious apartments you find, the more expensive it becomes. Like anywhere from $1500 to $2,000. Is that for a one bedroom? A two bedroom, two bathrooms. What I'm talking probably is more of like a two bedroom apartment. If you have a family, you usually want at least a two bedroom apartment. Or some people take rent townhouses, which is also around those price. But buying a house, eventually, you can really save with that. But it has to take time. You have to build your account first. Of course, it's very expensive to do a mortgage, but it saves you more money in the long run. And we just had someone else join us here. This is my roommate Chanel. She's here to say good morning to everybody. She saw that we were all talking and wanted to be part of the chat.

Patricia, tell us about your home and the cost of living where you live and you have a bigger family. Yeah, so initially, like, the rent, and I would totally agree with Joy, because a mortgage is much cheaper than renting, because I could tell you a three bedroom home right now if I needed to rent in the suburbs. It's probably a townhouse, probably $1550 month. It depends on where you are. So if I move further away from the city, it's cheaper. But you can get a mortgage for much less than that. So initially and that's what we all did, we rented. But the goal is always to buy your own home because it's an investment, and then in the long run, it's cheaper.

When did you buy your first home? What was that like? I bought my first home a couple of years ago and it was fun. It's really nice to see all your hard work come to fruition, at least. And for me now, my kids are much older. My youngest is 26. So I don't get to share my home with a lot of my kids anymore. But we still have great memories in there. And now I have to wait for grandkids. I can have fun with them in my home. But, yeah, it's nice to be able to purchase your home and then you have that investment. And especially for us as nurses, you want to be able to do that as well.

We have a question here from Leah. She says hello. We want to also know about Reading, Pennsylvania. Do either of you know anything about Reading, Pennsylvania? Have you been there? It's Reading. Oh, okay. Pennsylvania. I've been to Reading, but just in passing. But what we know here in Penn State Health, because we have a hospital over in Reading, Pennsylvania, which is the St. Joseph Hospital. So we always hear about Redding. I just was actually in some kind of a meeting town hall kind of thing here earlier. And the COO of St. Joseph was one of the speakers. And he talked about reading and Reading, it's famous for what did he say it's famous for shopping with bus code is one of the shopping here around Pennsylvania. And also Redding is famous for the pretzels. I don't know if people are aware knows what pretzels are, but writing is famous for that and chips. What is a pretzel? Oh, a pretzel is this hard little thing, kind of like a chip, but it's Patricia, can you help me?

Talking about the food is this little Patricia red kind of flour made of flour, but it's like a chip but harder. Yeah. I'm not sure if you want me to talk about preps. I think that they're delicious. So you go to the fair, you go to any sort of deli and it's like, look at me. It has salt. Super good because they'll sometimes serve it with cheese dip, like yellow cheese dip. The United States, we haven't become friends. I'm not friends with presto. Okay.

What is your favorite food, Patricia? I love my doubles from Tornado Tobago. My curry, anything spicy, I love to eat. So I love tacos. If you can put a lot of hot pepper in there, anything that's a little bit spicy, I put jalapeno pepper and everything. Soup, sandwiches, so yeah, anything spicy. I love that. Like Leia over here in the Chat put emoticons, emojis of pretzels. So if you don't know Leia got the right idea. We also have the Facebook user saying or asking,

Do you have any idea for Toby Hannah, Pennsylvania? Am I saying that wrong as well? Have either of you heard of this area? No. There's a lot of cities and towns in Pennsylvania. It's such a big state, but I haven't heard of it. I'd have to do a research on that new road trip. Right. Just to make sure to put on your list. Yes. We also have Jarrick here saying, I would like to ask these two lovely ladies if they have any idea about children's schools in Camp Hill. Have either of you heard of Camp Hill? Yes. So Camp Hill school system is quite okay. It's not really far from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, so it depends on the school district in Camp Hill and there's others that are better than the other ones. So you really have to just pick and choose which school district or which area of Camp Hill you would be.

What is the process like to register your kids in school? How do you get your kids in the school and get that started? It's pretty easy, actually. When I brought the kids here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, they were little, so you just have to really bring their transcript, all their information, their birth certificates to the school district, and then they give you the registration forms and that's how it goes. And then even with me at that time, I had a little one and she was only, I think, two and a half when she came over here. By the time she was four and a half, the school district already sent me an email and letters that your daughter can be enrolled in the next school year. So they're on it. I want to make sure everybody is getting a good education.

Patricia, what was that like for your family? Yeah, it's the same. Like my kids were all three years apart, so we take them in. One thing, all you need is fascination record. Make sure you have that before you come to the United States, because you need that in order to get your kids into school. That's really important. So you need that. You need your records from the school to see where they will act. And all of that helps with placing them in the right class. So that's important too. Yeah, it was not a tough process. It was just a little bit tedious because there's a lot of forms to fill out and all that stuff. But once you get the kids in the system, then the school district, they're pretty good about organizing where they go. Like Joy said, it's easy moving forward. Thank you. And if you at home are looking to come to the United States, bring your families apply.

Now we have lots of positions available for every type of specialty that you can imagine. Go to our website. It's Conneticsusa.com/application. As I said, we have lots of openings, including at Penn State Health.

Patricia, tell us about Penn State Health. What is it like working there? So Penn State Health is growing every day. Like right now they're building a new hospital in Lancaster. They just open the Hamden. I work at Penn State Holy Spirit, It's in the Camp Hill area. Then you have Pensive Health, Hush, that's in Hushy, near Toshi Park. And the Hushy Chocolate factory, very close. So Penn State Health also has a lot of medical groups and clinics and urgent care.

So what it's like to work here? I love the culture of Penn State House. I love the community. I love the fact that we have great leadership. I like the fact that they care about their staff. Being part of the leadership team, I have the opportunity to really positively affect the lives of my staff every day, which is great. I love the values of Penn State Health. I talk about this all the time, the right values, respect, integrity, teamwork and excellence. And every day we have opportunities to do that. I also love the fact that they have a great drive to be the best. I love that too, because we want to give the best patient care possible. And Penn State Health, the leadership, they're trying very hard to make sure we have everything we need to care for our patients. So I love the standard and the culture, the mission, the values of Penn State Health.

Joy, what about you? When you first started working at Penn State House, what surprised you? What did you like? What did you not like? Tell us about it. Working in Penn State House, for me, I think what I like most in some State House, they're so focused with education, they make sure all their staff have all the resources and all the sources of education that they can have. They support the management. Even from the highest management team down to your direct manager, they support you with education. Pencil House offers all kinds of resources for education. Here what I didn't like. I don't think so there's anything there certainly would be little things, but no one says it at work. But that's something you can solve with the support of your upper management. And then surprises. I don't think there's really anything. If there would be, you know that you would have the support of upper management. Everybody works together.

Patricia, you were talking about the community that you really loved. The community. There's the community inside the hospital, but then there's the community that you live in.

There's culture. There are people around you. What is that like? The culture where you live? Yeah, the culture is good. I think for my family. We network with a lot of people. We meet from the Caribbean, or we network with people in our community. For me, I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses, so I have a huge community. We have tons of Kingdom Hall, and I can network with a lot of my brothers and sisters in this area and throughout the United States. So the gist of it is it's easy for you to find your community. It's a very diverse area, and you'll be able to fit in and be able to network with the people that you would love to network with. So that was always a plus for me, the ability to be able to do that. I'm seeing in the chat now that people are asking how to apply once again, Conneticsusa.com/application. Scan this QR code to make it easy for yourself and fill out that application to apply. We have lots of recruiters getting lots of applications these days, so sit tight for them to get back in touch with you, and they will and absolutely help you with your journey to the United States.

Joy, I'm getting another question here from Marco. That's my dad's name. Are the schools safe for kids? That is a very good question. So a lot of schools are very good for the kids. Very safe for kids. Just in the school district where my kids are, I only have one kid in middle school now, but they do have secured doors. It means they only have one entrance, one exit, and then to enter the school, you have to buzz in, and then someone looks at the camera and make sure who is buzzing. Then they will let you in. So it depends on the area and the school district, how they have their safety and security is set up. But most of the schools are safe and secured. But I guess with what's going on around in the United States recently, that's why this question comes up. But every school district, they try to do their best to make it safe and secure for the kids. It is quite sad what has happened here in the United States with all of the school shootings. Just to let our viewers know at home, most of the school, of course, this is something absolutely horrible that we do experience here, and that question makes a lot of sense. Patricia, have you ever felt over all the years that your kids were unsafe? And now, of course, they've grown in their own lives and perhaps did more education as they got older.

Have you ever feared for your kids going to school? No. As I said, my youngest kid is now he would not appreciate the word kids, but he is not four kids. And then they grew. Yeah, 26. No. My kids went to the Central Dolphin School District. I think that's where Joyce's kids are as well. And I never had any issues, I mean, as Joyce said, to getting to the high school, you have to buzz in. It was always safe because they would never let your kids leave with anybody else. And you had to have a note for your kids to leave with someone, and then they would validate. You couldn't just pick your own kids up from school and stuff like that. So there are a lot of safety precautions that they had in high school. Like, my kids could never leave school without my permission. I had to give a note, and then I had to let them know if somebody else other than me was picking my kid up. So, yeah, I never felt that it wasn't safe for my kids at school.

Joy, when you took your children to school, how multicultural are the schools there? So the Harrisburg area here in Pennsylvania is very multicultural. Central Duffin School District, where Patricia Skills also went to, is very diverse. You would find kids from Nepal, from Bangladesh, from Africa, from the Philippines, from China, Japan, everywhere. So it's very diverse. I probably could say that San Jovan School District is one of the most diverse school districts here in the area.

Patricia, speaking of multicultural and diversity at Penn State Health, in your working setting, your work setting, what is the culture like? Is it multicultural as well? Are there people from all over the world working with you? Yes. I was just coming back from a meeting yesterday, and here I saw one of the physicians who I forget. I think it's from Kenya. And then I came onto my unit. We have nursing students who are from all over the world. So, yes, the fancy house experience, you'd see that more and more. We have people from all over the world who are finding a place to work at Penn State Health and who appreciate the culture at Pencil Health. I know that a lot of organizations are working on diversity. Pentagon Health is doing the same because we want to make sure that it doesn't matter who you are and where you come from, that you have a place and you feel like you belong accepted health. So it's very energetic. The energy around diversity is very vibrant, and you would get that sense when you get here. I'm getting questions again going back to the kids. Both of you have grown older kids, but we're getting a question here from RIA.

How about daycare in the area? Any idea how much I can answer that? It depends on which daycare you go. When my little boy was very little, when I had him in 2010, then I had to go back to work, like, three or four months after. So he had to be in daycare. I was just lucky enough that I was able to find a homebase daycare. So that's not as expensive as a regular day care. I was probably paying monthly less than $100 a month, so it was not as expensive as regular daycares, regular daycares could go very expensive. So it depends on where you would put your kid at. And then here at Penn State House, they have resources for daycare, too, so it would give you some discount wherever you would want to put their choices of daycares that they have, that you can get some discounts. As a Penn State Health employee, Aki Pillow Faith is asking, how soon can I start looking for my kids of ages five and eleven after being approved for the I-140? I do not know so much about the stages. I cannot give you that information of the stages of when you should start looking for your kids at the I-140 stage. But I do want one of you to answer the questions of how soon should parents start looking for schools? Is it when they arrive? Is it before they arrive?

Patricia, can you answer that one? Sure, yes. I can give you my experience. I looked at schools way before I came here. Back in Antargo, I Googled them to see if they want the news. I did all that type of stuff, just kind of figure out because I sort of plan where I would live based on the school. And you can do that as well. So you can look up Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, look up the school district, see where the schools are, see what you can read about them. There's a lot of information out there on the web. And then when you get here, then you can go in and get registered. And based on where you live, you get assigned to different schools. So it all depends on where you live, is where your kids can go to school for the most affordable price as well. I am getting a question here. Oh, by the way, I can pull away too, also, about the I-140 stage.

We do have immigration Question and answers shows coming up, so make sure you turn in for that. And one of our immigration lawyers can actually answer that question about the I-140 states. So make sure that you tune in again on Friday, and it's next week actually, so then we can talk a little bit more about that.

I'm getting a question here, Tess. How long is the maternity leave in the United States for a nurse, let's say at Penn State House? Yeah. Joy? Yeah. So normally it's twelve weeks of paid maternity leave, but if you were able to bank more hours of your paid time off and your personal time, then you can extend your leave however much hours you have enough to cover it. Is there also family leave as well that recently just came about? Now there is paternity leave aside from just the maternity leave.

So if you and your husband can have a leave here in Pennsylvania and it's at different times, or do you both have to take that leave together? If you work in the same place in Penn State? I'm not sure. Patricia, do you know if it's shared? No, I believe it could be. You can choose it, as far as I know.

Leia is asking, is there a Filipino shop or grocery in Pennsylvania? Joy, do you know this one? There are a lot of Filipino groceries and Filipino restaurants around Pennsylvania. Here in Harrisburg area where we live, there's not a specific Filipino grocery, but there's international groceries that have Filipino products. And then as you drive farther away, especially Philadelphia, that's where you find all the Filipino restaurants and groceries. Filipino products. Name out a few. Let's see adobo sauce. Let's see the different kinds of chips from the Philippines. Now you guys are making me hungry right now.

Patricia, we're getting a question here from Marco Aceto. Should we be worried about Pennsylvania taxation? What are taxes like? It's not too bad. I mean, sales tax is about 6%. Honestly, I don't really feel the taxes that much, the impact of it. So it's not too bad. It's about 6% per sales tax on the sales tax. And in the United States, whenever you're working as an employee at a hospital, which kinetics does do direct hire, which means that you become an employee of the hospital versus an employee of a staffing company. So you get all of the same benefits and pay as an American nurse, as your colleagues Conneticsusa.com/application. On that note, as far as the taxation goes, there's always federal taxes, which you pay to the big American government. And then there are also state taxes on top of that, which you pay with your state.

Joy, round about number. How much do you pay in state taxes or percentage? Percentage wise, I'm not so familiar. I usually just submit all my taxation information to a tax guru, and then they fix it because it's so complicated. I'm not so aware of it. So here in the United States, everyone uses what we call a CPA. It's a certified public accountant, and usually it's very inexpensive. Also, there are free programs here that you can do your taxes as well and so that they actually take care of everything and they make it super easy for everybody. So definitely whenever you come here, it's really affordable, and you can get all of the tax information that you need. So we have another question here,

Patricia, why did you choose Pennsylvania? We talked about the state and how it was about work, but what else were the influencers? Yeah, I think, as I said, it was really because I was coming here with my colleagues, and I loved that we had a group of us. But Pennsylvania is a lot of different states. It's like a central area. And I chose Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, because it's a quiet place where I felt like I can grow my kids up and as opposed to going to New York, which would expose them to a very busy culture I was trying to keep them more or less close to a type of environment that we have had back and from that. So that works for me. As opposed to going to a big city, Harrisburg was just the right place, so to speak.

Jarrett is saying, I'm going to Holy Spirit, Penn State. I'm still in the process. But as an immigrant yourselves, do you have any tips for me and my family? We were actually going to wrap up with this question.

Joy, what device do you have for Jarrick and his family? What I would tell him, read a lot about Pennsylvania. Read about Penn State House. Maybe Connetics nursing recruitment agency can help with that. Once you are here, you can get connected. Patricia is over in Holy Spirit. You can get connected with her. There's many of us here that could help you out. I believe Pentecost would have to set it up for their immigrant nurses.

They would have to have some kind of resources for them. So I'm sure Penn State House would set it up since Pacific Health is very into diversity and inclusion. So I'm sure there will be some resources for you when you would come here.

Patricia, Holy Spirit, Penn State, what piece of advice would you give Jarrett for him and his family whenever they get here? Come. We are excited to have you. We're going to embrace you. It's going to be a fun time. It's a great opportunity for you to elevate your practice and really make your career whatever you want it to be. And I would say the same thing with Joy. Do a lot of research because I don't know the specifics of your family or what your needs are, but whatever your needs are, try to make sure that you do the research and ask questions. I know connected. They're very good about giving support, so that would be good as well. And I know Penn State help. They're planning a lot for you guys to prepare for when you get here. So no worries about getting the help when you get here. Just think about what you would need as a family.

And Connetics is here to support you. We have our circle of support. That's actually what sets us apart from the rest is whenever you get here to the United States, we won't just let you go and say, hey, have fun. We actually have our circle of support here on the screen. And this is how we support everyone. We put them together. We put nurses together with buddies who are some usually from their home country, so they can connect and also connect them with community resources. We have Compassion Cafes in the clubhouse, which is somewhat of a basically a therapy session for the nurses who are coming here to the United States so that they can talk about it and about culture shock, buying a car, building credits. We also hook them up with all sorts of resources from our Education Department. So whenever they arrive at Penn State House, they're going to get all the training that they need in order to be successful there. And that's how we set everybody up for success. So if you are looking to come to the United States, we are ready to take your application Conneticsusa.com/application.

We also have a 50 States guidebook on our website with information about every state in the United States, from the cost of living to things to do. You can scan this QR code right here on your screen, or you can go to our website and you can find these guidebooks and download them and keep them handy for your journey. We also have some new initiatives that are actually getting started here at Connetics.

We, of course, have our IELTS Scholarship. We have an NCLEX Scholarship. Now, everything goes under the Connetics College, which is our new show. It's on Mondays at 05:00, a.m. Pacific Standard Time, which is 08:00 P.M. In the Philippines and 04:00 P.M. In the UAE. So make sure you do not miss that. We have niner Swoosh and Aspire doing bonus classes for 1 hour, and then we also have that connected with our Iowa Scholarship and NCLEX Scholarships, which were Connetics pays for you to take those exams and to take a course to prepare for those exams if you qualify. So, of course, apply now. Conneticsusa.com/application, we have some upcoming shows to make sure that you sign in and join us. As we said, we have our Connetics College shows that just started off next week. Immigration, Q and A. So for the people that were here asking about the I-140, about the EB3 Green Card adjustment status, every question that you want to know.

Our immigration lawyers will be joining us to give us that information. July Lots coming up. It is the 4 July, Independence Day. We have a special game show ready to go for you. You can actually take part in the game show clients showcase coming up on Sienna.

We also have a big recruitment event on July 15 where our recruiters will be here answering your questions and talking about the support that you can get here in the United States when you arrive. Lefora Talk Show. Never ever want to miss a Lefora Talk Show that we do once a month. Always the third Tuesday. The next one is July the 19th. We're going to be doing a licensing question and answer. We're going to have two licensing experts that are here in the United States who can give you all of the information that you need to be licensed to be a licensed nurse here in the United States.

Thank you so much, everybody, for joining us today. It was so fun to have Joy and Patricia here. Thank you so much, ladies, for being here, telling us about your experiences, your families, work, and working at Penn State. Help thank you to our audience for joining us. And we'll once again, as we always say, see you next week. Onwards and Upwards. Take care, everyone. Have a good weekend.