Today we’d like to introduce you to Theresa Fantauzzi.
Hi Theresa, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to caring for people and helping them navigate difficult moments. My father was studying nursing while serving in the military before he passed away when I was seven years old. For years afterward, I kept his nursing bag in my closet. I can still remember the stethoscope and bandage scissors inside. As a child, I always said I wanted to become an OB because I wanted to deliver babies. I didn’t know then exactly what my career would look like, but I knew I wanted my work to involve caring for people.
That desire eventually led me into healthcare. I worked as a Community Health Navigator, where I helped lead a hospital readmission reduction initiative in collaboration with a local hospital and our care management team. I worked with high-risk patients after discharge, making sure they understood their discharge instructions, helping coordinate services on their behalf, connecting them with resources, and following up. That experience taught me something I’ve carried with me ever since: sometimes people don’t need more instructions, they need someone to help them understand those instructions, navigate the system, find the right resources, and make sure they aren’t doing it alone.
I later became a Community Outreach Supervisor for a Medicaid managed care organization, but I was also pursuing another longtime dream: nursing school. I made it into my second clinical rotation when COVID-19 changed everything. Our cohort was abruptly sent home and moved to online learning. At the same time, I was pregnant with my third child. The transition was difficult for me, and I ultimately withdrew from the program.
That decision was harder than I admitted for a long time. I felt like someone who hadn’t finished. Nursing carried such a personal connection to my father, and I had been especially looking forward to my labor and delivery rotation. Even today, if I returned to that world, I think I would be more drawn to becoming a nurse-midwife or doula because what has always interested me most is being able to support the whole person, not just clinically, but through education, advocacy, resources, reassurance, and presence.
When the pandemic shifted the direction of my career, I spent the next couple of years supporting my husband’s then, joint business venture. That chapter gave me an entirely different education. I successfully staffed and managed a customer service department and built and managed the only profitable sales team the company had seen, selling a high-ticket fitness coaching product. I was also involved in major financial decisions and began recognizing recurring patterns in the business that concerned me. I wanted our family to diversify its income, but I also began realizing that I had developed the skills to build something myself.
That’s when the earliest version of Agape Care Solutions began taking shape.
In 2022, while we were living in Florida, I formed an LLC and commissioned a 63-page market research report on the Florida home care industry. I wanted to know whether what I was considering made sense, not only emotionally, but as a business. The research showed a growing aging population, increasing demand for care at home, a fragmented market, and an industry with significant opportunity. It also warned about many of the challenges I would eventually experience firsthand: caregiver shortages, rising wages, reimbursement pressure, staffing, and the importance of strong local referral networks.
I didn’t launch Agape then. At that point in my life and marriage, I didn’t feel I had the support I needed to take that leap, particularly after spending the previous years helping build another business. So I put the idea aside.
But I never completely let it go.
Eventually, I came back to Agape with a different level of confidence and life experience. Looking back now, I realize that home care brought together pieces of my life that once seemed unrelated: healthcare navigation, community outreach, hospital transitions, leadership, staffing, sales, hospitality, education, resource coordination, and my natural tendency to be the person people call when they don’t know what to do next.
Today, I am the founder of Agape Care Solutions, a licensed non-medical home care agency serving families in Pennsylvania. We help adults remain safely and independently at home through personal care, companionship, homemaker services, respite care, medication reminders, and other everyday support.
What I’m building is still very much a work in progress. I don’t want to tell my story as though I’ve reached some finish line, because I haven’t. I’m learning what it means to build a company, employ people, serve families, navigate regulation, manage cash flow, develop referral relationships, and carry the responsibility that comes with someone trusting you to care for a person they love.
But I’ve also started looking differently at the woman who once believed she was someone who “didn’t finish.”
Maybe my path didn’t unfold the way I thought it would. I didn’t become the OB I talked about becoming as a little girl, and I didn’t finish nursing school. But the desire underneath those dreams to care for people, advocate for them, educate them, find resources, solve complicated problems, follow up, and make sure people feel supported during vulnerable moments never really went away.
Agape is one of the places where all of those pieces of my story are finally coming together.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Not at all.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that having experience in healthcare and business does not mean you’re automatically prepared for everything that comes with owning a healthcare related company.
I first seriously explored starting Agape in 2022. I had formed an LLC in Florida and invested in market research because I wanted to understand the industry before jumping in. But I ultimately didn’t move forward at that time. I didn’t feel I had the support I needed to take the risk, and with a young family and other responsibilities, starting a business wasn’t a decision I could make in isolation.
For a while, I put the idea away. That was difficult because I had already begun imagining what it could become, but sometimes having a vision and being in the right position to execute it are two different things.
When I eventually came back to Agape, I discovered another challenge: there is an enormous difference between understanding the need for home care and actually building a compliant, financially sustainable home care agency.
There is a lot happening behind the scenes that families will hopefully never have to think about. Licensing, regulations, caregiver screening and training, documentation, scheduling, payroll, insurance, technology, billing, client acquisition and maintaining compliance are all part of delivering what, from the outside, can look like a very simple service: sending a dependable person into someone’s home to help them.
Staffing has been another lesson. In home care, your caregivers aren’t just employees on a schedule they are the people representing your company inside someone’s most personal space: their home. Finding people who are dependable, compassionate and aligned with the standard of care I want Agape to provide is something I take seriously. At the same time, as an employer, I have a responsibility to make sure the business is financially healthy enough to support the people who depend on Agape for their paycheck.
Cash flow has probably been one of the most humbling parts of entrepreneurship. Revenue on paper and money available in the bank are two very different things. There have been moments when I’ve had to make difficult decisions, solve problems quickly and learn financial lessons I couldn’t have fully understood until I was the person ultimately responsible.
And then there is the emotional side of entrepreneurship.
There is a different kind of pressure that comes with building something that carries your name, your reputation and your values. When something goes wrong, there isn’t another department to hand it to. I’m the person who has to find the answer. That can be exhausting, but strangely, it is also one of the parts of entrepreneurship that feels most natural to me. I’ve spent much of my life being the person who navigates complicated situations, finds resources, asks questions and figures out what comes next.
One of my biggest personal struggles has been learning to trust myself.
I had already helped build systems and teams within other organizations, but building something of my own required a different kind of confidence. I’ve had to become comfortable making decisions without always having someone beside me telling me they are the right ones. I’ve had to learn when to ask for help, when to seek expert guidance and when I’ve gathered enough information and simply need to move.
I’m also building Agape while being a wife and mother. Entrepreneurship doesn’t happen in a separate compartment from the rest of your life. There are children who still need you, a household that still exists, relationships that require attention and bills that don’t care whether you’re having a difficult month in business.
So no, it hasn’t been a smooth road, and I don’t think I would want to present it that way.
Agape is still a young company. I’m still learning, adjusting and building. There have been setbacks, uncomfortable lessons and moments when I’ve questioned myself. But there have also been moments that remind me why I kept coming back to this idea.
I’m learning that resilience isn’t always continuing at full speed. Sometimes it’s putting something down when the timing isn’t right, growing in the meantime, and having the courage to pick it back up when you’re better prepared to carry it.
And for me, that’s a big part of the Agape story.
We’ve been impressed with Agape Care Solutions, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Agape Care Solutions is a licensed, non-medical home-care agency serving adults and families throughout the Philadelphia region. We provide personal care, companionship, homemaker services, respite care, medication reminders and other everyday support that helps people remain safe, comfortable and independent in their own homes.
Our name comes from the Greek word agape, meaning selfless or unconditional love, and that idea influences how I want the company to operate. For me, home care isn’t simply about completing a list of tasks during a shift. It’s about understanding the person receiving the care, what matters to them and what will allow them to maintain as much dignity, independence and normalcy as possible.
One of the things that sets Agape apart is that we’re intentionally building as a smaller, relationship driven agency. Families aren’t calling a large, rotating call center and caregivers aren’t just names being placed into open shifts. I want families to know who they’re working with, have direct access to our leadership and see familiar caregivers in their homes whenever possible. Strong caregiver client relationships matter to us because trust and consistency are a major part of good home care.
We’re also very focused on what I think of as the space between care and everyday life.
Someone may know that they should take their medication, attend an appointment, complete their physical therapy exercises, eat properly or remain active. But knowing what you’re supposed to do and having the support to consistently do it are two different things. That’s where companionship, reminders, encouragement and hands-on everyday assistance can make such a difference.
My background as a Community Health Navigator has heavily influenced that philosophy. I spent part of my career helping high risk patients understand their discharge instructions, coordinating services on their behalf and connecting them with resources. I saw firsthand how easily people can become overwhelmed once they’re back home and expected to navigate everything themselves.
I brought that perspective into Agape. While we are a non-medical agency and our caregivers do not replace nurses, physicians or other clinical professionals, we can be an important part of the support system surrounding a client. Sometimes what a person needs is someone consistently showing up, paying attention, helping with the activities of daily life, offering companionship and communicating when something isn’t working.
We currently work with families who pay privately, and we also work with Pennsylvania’s Act 150 Program and families using long-term care insurance. Our care is designed around the individual rather than forcing every family into the same model.
Another thing I want Agape to become known for is resourcefulness. I don’t want our relationship with a family to begin and end with, “Can we staff these hours?” My background has taught me to ask more questions. What is the family actually struggling with? What resources might they not know about? Is there another professional or organization they should be connected with? Is there a problem we can’t solve ourselves but can help them find the right direction for?
That doesn’t mean Agape can be everything to everyone. Part of responsible care is understanding the boundaries of what we do. But even when something falls outside of our scope, I want our instinct to be, “Let’s see if we can help you figure out where to go next.”
I’m particularly proud that we’re building Agape around relationships rather than volume. Growth matters, we’re a business, and we need to be financially healthy to serve our clients and employ great caregivers, but I never want growth to come at the expense of the experience families receive.
I’m also proud of the standards we’re putting in place behind the scenes. Families may never see the work involved in caregiver screening, training, competency, documentation, scheduling, compliance and quality assurance, but those things matter tremendously when you’re asking someone to trust your company inside their home.
Ultimately, I don’t want Agape to be known simply as a company that provides home care hours.
I want us to be known as the people who show up, follow through and help families navigate care with a little less uncertainty.
If a family finishes their experience with Agape feeling that their loved one was treated with dignity, that they were listened to, and that they didn’t have to figure everything out by themselves, then we’re building the kind of company I intended to create.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something people may not know about me is how much I love car ride karaoke with my daughter. Some of my favorite moments with her are honestly the simplest ones just the two of us in the car, music turned all the way up, singing like we’re putting on a full concert.
It doesn’t matter whether we’re running errands, taking a long drive, or just going somewhere around the corner. Once the right song comes on, we’re performing.
I think I love it so much because life can get really busy. Between being a wife, a mom, running a business, and constantly thinking about what needs to happen next, those car rides are one of the places where I can just be present. I’m not solving a problem or checking something off a list. I’m just a mom having fun with my daughter.
Those ordinary moments have become some of my favorite memories, and I hope that years from now, when she hears certain songs, she thinks about us singing entirely too loudly in the car together.
And for the record, we both think we sound amazing. 😂
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.agapecaresolutions.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/agapecaresolutions/, www.instagram.com/theresa.fantauzzi/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Agape-Care-Solutions/61559173192516/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/agape-care-solutions/, https://www.linkedin.com/in/theresasf/
- Other: https://agapecaresolutions.caresmartz360.com/v2/prospective-external-form
