Gulf County seniors gather for Cinco de Mayo

The Port St. Joe Senior Citizens Center welcomed the largest crowd it has seen in a while on Friday for their Cinco de Mayo celebration, which featured buffet-style food, live music and plenty of fun with friends and neighbors.

Dozens of seniors made an appearance at the event, some traveling from Mexico Beach or Wewahitchka to take part, and the room was alive with excited chatter.

Eddie Fields, the Gulf County Senior Citizens Association, said the event took a little less than a week to plan – a quick but necessary turnaround as he and the GCSCA’s other staff work to bring more activity to both of the county’s senior centers.

“We put this together in a week,” he said. “You’re always going to run into a little bump in the road that needs to get sorted out, but at the end of the day, you’ve just got to keep moving. We all feel like we’re on a mission.”

Food for the event was prepared by the kitchen staff at Port St. Joe High School, who stepped in after some of the center’s regular volunteers were unable to cook for the gathering.

Events like Friday’s, Fields explained, are the result of a community-wide effort to improve enrichment for the county’s senior citizens.

“It was a big community effort,” he said. “That’s the entire thing. We’re trying to pull the community together one way or another.”

For more information about the Gulf County Senior Citizens Association and upcoming events, visit the organization’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Gulf-County-Senior-Citizens-Association-115972045412733 or call 850-229-8466.