For Carla Payne, Wake Forest is more than the place where she built her business. It's where, after a lifetime of moving, she finally found home.
Payne estimates she moved close to 30 times throughout her childhood, young adulthood, and married life. Her father’s career took their family throughout North Carolina, and later, her former husband’s work in banking brought another series of moves as jobs changed and banks merged.
When she returned to North Carolina in 2015, she considered Charlotte and Fuquay-Varina before looking at Wake Forest, where she had a friend.
It did not take long for something to feel different.
“Wake Forest is my forever home,” Payne said. “I have roots now. I will not move again. It is everything I hoped for — that small-town connection while still being in the middle of so much growth.”
Today, Payne is the owner of Aging Care Matters, a care management company and adult day center serving families navigating dementia, aging, and other health challenges. But the path to the business began with an experience in her own family.
Payne’s father died at 71 — an age she still considers far too young. At the time, she was trying to manage his care as a long-distance daughter and found herself searching for help in a system she did not yet understand.
She contacted a company that offered to help families find care at no cost, only to discover that its recommendations were based on referral relationships. Under pressure to make a decision, Payne found a facility for her father in Hickory.
What she saw there stayed with her.
“It was terrible. It was sad and depressing, and it broke my heart,” she said.
When Payne returned to Pennsylvania, she began volunteering in nursing homes and eventually advocating for older adults who had no one else to advocate for them. She earned her master’s degree in 2009 and discovered the field of professional care management.
After trying a number of career paths, she knew immediately this one was different.
She had found her calling.
Payne started Brandywine Elder Care Management in Pennsylvania before eventually moving to Wake Forest and launching Aging Care Matters in 2018. Since then, she estimates she has helped more than 1,000 families navigate crises, care decisions, and the complicated realities of aging.
Through that work, Payne began seeing another need.
Families wanted to keep their loved ones at home, but the options available to them were becoming increasingly expensive. Companion care can cost $35 to $40 an hour, while some residential care options can reach $12,000 to $17,000 a month.
At the same time, Payne saw how damaging isolation could be for older adults, particularly those living with dementia.
“Loneliness is killing people,” she said. “When someone is sitting at home with the TV on, they are stagnant. Being in a social setting keeps people engaged and connected and helps them stay at their capacity longer.”
Adult day care offered another solution: a place where participants could spend their days in a safe, social, and engaging environment while family caregivers had the ability to work, run errands, or simply take a break.
Payne initially planned to open a center that would compete with an existing adult day program in Wake Forest. Instead, an opportunity emerged to take over that center. With the help of an SBA loan, she acquired the business and began building it into the model she envisioned.
Today, the Wake Forest center is at capacity, and Aging Care Matters has expanded into Durham.
The centers are open 10 hours a day and cost approximately $100 per day, giving families a significantly more affordable option while allowing their loved ones to remain at home longer.
Payne also brings something unique to the model: her expertise as a certified care manager. Families can turn to her for help navigating long-term care insurance, communicating with family members, finding resources, and understanding what steps to take next.
“They get me,” she said. “They get somebody who can be boots on the ground and help them navigate all of these different pieces.”
For Payne, building Aging Care Matters has always been intertwined with the Wake Forest community.
Her first office was located inside Perkins Counseling, and she became involved with the Wake Forest Area Chamber of Commerce and Wake Forest Women in Networking. Then COVID-19 arrived just as the business was beginning to grow.
The Chamber helped provide grant funding. Town programs created connections to mentors, resources, and other entrepreneurs. Launch Wake Forest helped her refine her business plan, even after she had already spent years as a business owner.
Later, Payne participated in the Wake Forest Business & Industry Partnership’s Founders Program, where she continued strengthening her understanding of technology, resources, and the relationships available to entrepreneurs in Wake Forest.
The Loading Dock Wake Forest became an especially important part of that experience. For Payne, it was not simply a place to work. It was where she developed ideas, asked others for their opinions, printed documents, built friendships, and found encouragement during difficult seasons of entrepreneurship.
“It was a true home,” she said. “It was therapy, friendships, and healing. Everyone was rooting for me.”
One small moment during the Founders Program still captures that experience for her. During a drawing, Clarence from Wisdom Senior Care won a prize and immediately gave it to Payne.
It represented the kind of support she had repeatedly found since arriving in Wake Forest.
“When something is offered in Wake Forest, I know it is going to be top of the line,” Payne said. “Wake Forest offers so much to its residents. I don’t know anywhere else that invests in its people that way Wake Forest does.”
Jason Cannon, President of the Wake Forest Business & Industry Partnership, said Payne’s story reflects exactly what the Town hopes to create through its entrepreneurial programs.
“Carla’s journey is an outstanding example of what happens when a founder combines a clear sense of purpose with a community that is willing to support them along the way,” Cannon said. “Our goal is not simply to provide a program or a resource. It is to create connections that entrepreneurs can continue to draw from as their businesses evolve and grow. Carla has taken those connections and turned them into something that is making meaningful differences for her business and to families throughout our community.”
Those connections have continued to surface throughout Payne’s life in Wake Forest.
She remembers meeting Sue Lucy shortly after moving to town and immediately feeling a connection. She fell in love with downtown Wake Forest and the people she met there. One of those people was Laura, who worked at an antique store downtown. Years later, after the store closed, Laura became an employee at Aging Care Matters.
“You connect with people here, and they come back into your life,” Payne said. “That is what makes Wake Forest different for me. It isn’t surface level.”
After spending so much of her life moving, Payne appreciates the ability to walk downtown while still looking out her back door at trees and woods. More than that, she appreciates the feeling that people from many different places have come together to create something that still feels personal.
And just as Wake Forest has supported her, Payne wants Aging Care Matters to be a resource for the community that helped her build it.
She offers free consultations, speaks at churches and community meetings, and shares educational resources with families who are trying to understand what aging care may look like before they find themselves in a crisis.
Because, Payne said, most families do not know what they do not know until they suddenly need help.
“As a Wake Forest citizen, I love this town, and I want to give my best to it,” she said. “If I can help anyone, I want to help. My passion and my purpose are helping people navigate the aging system.”
For Payne, that purpose is not separate from her business, her community, or even her own story.
“It truly is my calling,” she said. “It is me. You can’t separate it. It is all connected.”
And after a lifetime of moving, Payne has found the place where all of those pieces have come together.
Wake Forest is home.
