Thanks to Grace Methodist Church

To our extended family at Grace Methodist Church,

Hello, my name is Daisy Godbee and I am the Activity Director at Juniper Village Assisted Living Community. I am sending you this email to share with you how much Grace Church has touched our hearts in so many wonderful ways. Our relationship with Grace started off with the gracious visits for Sunday service with Tom and Bonnie. Services started at 1:30pm every Sunday, but attendance was   low. Tom and Bonnie offered to change the time to 10am, traditionally our residents would always attend church on Sunday mornings. The turnaround in attendance was amazing.  Thank you Tom and Bonnie Kapla for all of the extra steps you take to make your mission possible.

Our next friendship was made with PAWS. Some of our residents are somewhat reclusive and choose not to attend many activities. However, with PAWS that is a different story. These residents thoroughly enjoy and look forward to the visits. For the time that they are visiting, our residents forget about anything that may be troubling them. This visit takes them to a pleasant place.

 We were proud to be part of The Grace Community Garden Project when it first started. We were asked if we would be interested in planting seeds in containers and when the time was right we would deliver our plants to Grace. Fortunately we were able to attend the blessing of the garden and a few of our residents assisted in planting some of the plants.

Children and animals bring out the true spirit in our seniors at Juniper.

Visiting Grace Small Wonders is always a successful outing. Our residents always look forward to the new school year for our visits. They tend to pick out a handful of children that they have decided to take home with them. As the year goes by, we take notice on how much the children have grown. We are also very proud of the nickname that we were given “The Village People”.

One of our highly involved programs is “Feed The Pack”. Thank you to Betty Andrews for allowing us to volunteer. Our residents are always ready to get to work. Some of our residents are visually challenged which sometimes limits their ability to be involved. Not in this case. This activity not only allows our residents to volunteer, but it is a social hour. They share many stories of the pets that have had over the years and funny habits their pets had. Our oldest volunteer will be 98 in November. Her family is so pleased that she is involved in such a wonderful program. 

Grace was generous enough to involve us in volunteering for a community project. Betty Andrews asked what services they could give to Juniper. We all decided that our courtyard was in need of much TLC. The crew came in and revamped everything. Even down to vacuuming the cushions on the outdoor furniture. One of our residents was out of the building for a month. Her passion is working in our courtyard. Upon her return, she was not able to care for the plants as she used to. She was so happy when she saw the miracle that Grace completed.

We recently had the pleasure in meeting Betty Henderson. She is the teacher with the “Exceptional Entrepreneurs”. Betty contacted me to ask if they could stop by and drop off some of the flowers that were created by her students. Absolutely was my reply. Taking the students to meet some of the recipients of these gifts was amazing. Our residents were so pleased to see something so unique and created with much love.  This made them feel extra special.

Our newest addition to this wonderful circle of friends is Robin Doffmeyer. Robin was kind enough to contact me and asked if her students could make some sort of craft for our residents celebrating Mother’s Day as well as Father’s day. Our residents were touched when they received their gifts. Just knowing someone was thinking of them truly touched their hearts.

There are not enough words to describe how we at Juniper Village are so thankful for all of the wonderful blessings you have sent our way. You have all touched our hearts in so many ways!!! We praise each and every person from Grace Church.

Sincerely,

Daisy Godbee