A local funeral home is on a mission to go beyond the common perception of its industry, and it’s doing just that with yet another director, coupled with a sixth straight excellence award.

For employees at Worlein Funeral Home, receiving an award isn’t a reason to rest on laurels. Rather, it seems to be what drives them further every year. For the sixth year in a row, Worlein Funeral Home, with buildings in Austin and Blooming Prairie, received the National Funeral Directors Association Pursuit of Excellence Award. That may make the award seem like more of a pat on the back for simply being a neat organization; however, that’s not the case. The award was given to 153 funeral homes this year in the U.S. and just eight in Minnesota. The criteria are stringent and demanding.

In the past decade, Worlein has steadily grown busier. And with that, it has added a fourth funeral director, Dan McRaith.

“We have a very good staff, and Dan is a very good addition,” said Director Paul Worlein.

McRaith is no stranger to organizing funerals. He headed funeral homes in Waseca and Janesville before joining Worlein in July. He’s familiar with the excellence award, something he says wouldn’t have been possible to achieve at his previous locations because he wore so many hats.

“I looked at the criteria on this thing, and I thought, I don’t know how anybody could do it,” McRaith said. “I had no shot. There was no way I would have done it.”

The award’s criteria require a funeral home to begin a new initiative every year. In the funeral business, that may seemingly not leave many options. However, Worlein continues to find ways to create new services with its many employees who specialize in specific areas. That’s one reason why McRaith wanted to join the team.

“That’s what kind of attracted me to Worlein was the attention to service,” he said.

In the past years, Worlein has received the award for helping educate youngsters and parents on the effects of bullying and how it can lead to tragedy. One year, it held a seminar at its funeral home with many outside speakers educating the public about grief. Another year, it worked with public health and pharmacies on a hand sanitizer campaign. To shoot for next year’s award and continue to expand its services, it is working with KSMQ on a film that will educate the public about dealing with grief.

Mary Kittelson, Worlein’s certified preplanning consultant, helps find ways to improve the funeral home each year. The whole point, she says, is Worlein is trying to become a resource for the public, not just a place people contact when family members die. It’s trying to expound upon the traditional concept of a funeral home.

“It’s all part of hoping that people will look at the funeral home as a resource,” Kittelson said.

At Worlein, that now means the work isn’t always done after the funeral. While Kittelson is a preplanning consultant, she also tries to offer advice as families move on.

“One of the things we have here at the funeral home that we’re expanding all the time is our continuing care program, and that’s when we help the family after the loss,” Kittelson said.

That means talking to families about health care directives, insurance, income, power of attorney and so on. Those aspects, McRaith thought, were quite unique.

With six full-time and about 14-part time employees, Worlein is poised to tackle whatever challenges it may face in the future. In the meantime, it continues to forge its own path.