Christmas spirit brightens care center residents
The spirit of giving is alive and well in Port St. Joe.
The Shores Care and Rehabilitation Center, under the direction of Michele Kettles, received many donations for their Christmas Party Thursday afternoon, Dec. 21.
Activities Director Valerie James coordinated with the First United Methodist Church of Port St. Joe’s assistant minister Chandler Robbins for the teen and middle school groups, Amy St. John, with the FUMC O’Bay Sunday School class, along with Joe Sieber, representing the WindMark Beach Church, to give all 73 residents Angel Tree gifts.
Ron Reed, manager of Duren’s Piggly Wiggly Grocery Supermarket, donated their delicious fried chicken, and Up Town Raw Bar owners Erin and Christian Johnson prepared a holiday ham meal with all the trimmings. VFW Auxiliary Post # 10069 also provided gifts for the Angel Bags.
Members of the Port St. Joe High School softball team gave cookies while the Port St. Joe NJROTC provided brown bags of gifts too. The Trilogy Home Health Care gave lovely warm white throws for the bed-bound and wheelchair residents, and the Holiness Church of White City also gave candy canes at the festivities. All this created a festive mood for residents, their families and staff.
The FUMC O’Bay Sunday School Class gave 20 gift certificates to the CNAs (certified nurse assistants) for their dedication, at the party and later on Dec. 22.
Amy and Mike St. John, Chandler Robbins, Joe Sieber and Dave Barkalow lead residents in the songs “Silent Night,” “Away In a Manger,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” with Barkalow reading a passage from Luke 2 and Sieber offering a prayer of thanks.
“It is better to give than to receive” added to the holiday spirit for residents of the Shores Care and Rehabilitation Center.
Meet the Editor
David Adlerstein, The Apalachicola Times’ digital editor, started with the news outlet in January 2002 as a reporter.
Prior to then, David Adlerstein began as a newspaperman with a small Boston weekly, after graduating magna cum laude from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He later edited the weekly Bellville Times, and as business reporter for the daily Marion Star, both not far from his hometown of Columbus, Ohio.
In 1995, he moved to South Florida, and worked as a business reporter and editor of Medical Business newspaper. In Jan. 2002, he began with the Apalachicola Times, first as reporter and later as editor, and in Oct. 2020, also began editing the Port St. Joe Star.