Home care business gets new home
Trending
FAIRMONT - After working from a home office since opening up in 2025, Midwest Valley Home Care has set up shop in Fairmont at 111 East 2nd Street.
Owner Ashley Brown previously worked in the Twin Cities as an emergency department nurse before moving into home health after earning her Doctor of Nursing Practice.
"I’ve been a nurse practitioner for three years specializing in geriatrics," she said. "I helped with seniors in their home, helping to control their different conditions like diabetes, congestive heart failure, anything that might need some long-term chronic management. I eventually started doing some more preventative care for seniors as well, and that drove my passion into doing more home care sector as well."
After her fair share of time in the Twin Cities, Brown moved to Granada in April of 2025 with her husband Kory, who also co-owns the business.
"My husband is originally from Granada," she said. "He was born and raised there. He graduated from Fairmont High School, and when he joined the military, he moved up to the Twin Cities, and that’s how we met. He always told me he wanted to live back in this area because it’s so wonderful, and he wanted to raise a family here."
When moving to Granada, Brown also had to choose what her next step was in her career. To make her decision, she did some research.
"As a nurse practitioner you’re looking for connections and networking. I am certified in family practice so I wanted to see what avenues I could go down in terms of helping patients in the area. I saw there’s a larger population of people over the age of 65 in the area, and then just in my work in helping with an insurance company doing assessments for them, I saw that there’s actually a lack of available resources all the time, and so that’s why I wanted to start this."
Through Midwest Valley Home Care, which currently has around 20 employees and a similar amount of clients, as they operate on a one-to-one basis, Brown said they provide non-medical care under the direction of a given person's primary care provider.
"We’ll do an assessment and see what needs they have in the home in terms of activity of daily living," she said. "This can be anywhere from bathing or personal care, hygiene, those daily things to meal preparation, medication reminders, doing housekeeping and maintaining the home in terms of laundry, dishes, sweeping, mopping and dusting."
In addition, they can also provide transportation, bringing them to appointments as well as for errands and groceries. Their services extend through 11 counties, including Martin, Faribault, Jackson, Watonwan and Blue Earth.
For the first year, Brown worked out of a home office, with the old Granada Congregational Church as a home base. Ultimately, she said this was not sustainable.
"We would do a lot of on-the-job training out in the field with the clients and everything," she said. "Now that we have a dedicated space, we have a conference room, we’re able to do those monthly trainings. We’re able to help caregivers if they need a little more help with online trainings. They can come in at any time, and they know that they’ll receive that support."
As for how everything came together, Brown found the location while operating her business.
"I use social media for some of my marketing and for recruitment purposes," she said. "I saw that this location was available. Me being newer to the community, I didn’t know the best way to go about finding an open office space. I believe it was on a marketplace group, and I met with the landlord, and it was a good fit."
So far, Brown said the new location has been a very exciting step for them.
"It is solidifying that we’re making an impact in the community," she said. "That we’re able to serve so many families that we have been able to take this next step."
Moving forward, Brown said they are looking to continue expanding and raising awareness of what they do.
"We are growing every day," she said. "We actually just hired another full-time employee today, and we’re actively recruiting because we’re getting more clients. There’s so much need, especially in the rural areas where people might not know that you have this opportunity to have someone help out in your home. You don’t have to go to a facility. You can age in place. You can age in your own home."
As a bigger dream, Brown said they would like to eventually get a transport vehicle for the business. Currently, people are transported by privately owned cars with special insurance.
At their new location, Midwest Valley Home Care is open for walk-ins from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday and Fridays are appointment only. For more information, visit midwestvalleyhomecare.com/ or call 507-618-1474.