ELK POINT – The Town of Elk Point got a head start on celebrating Seniors Week, June 5 to 11, with Mayor Parrish Tung and his crew cooking up a pancake breakfast at the Seniors Recreation Centre on Sunday, June 4 for area seniors and their families, with other groups carrying on the celebration later in the week.
One of the busiest and most dedicated groups of seniors are Elk Point Further Education’s Charity Quilters, who have already completed and given out a total of 319 quilts this year, with nine of them going even farther afield than the usual recipients such as Edmonton’s Hope Mission, Kids Kottage and Shilo Camp. Nine of the quilts went all the way to Rwanda, delivered by a nurse from Edmonton on a humanitarian mission. Another 20 quilts will be delivered to those in need in the Congo when the same nurse heads there in September.
The prolific stitchers who created all those quilts were joined by other crafters on Wednesday for Further Ed’s semi-annual Show and Tell potluck, with displays of everything from full-size and miniature quilts to greeting cards, bags and other creations and a huge potluck buffet to enjoy before they packed away the displays and sett up a wide range of donated items for the weekend’s fundraising garage sale.
Thursday was the Elk Point stop for St. Paul Regional FCSS Seniors Week luncheon and entertainment, with stops in St. Paul, Heinsburg and Mallaig earlier in the week and a final stop in Ashmont slated for Friday.
The seniors were greeted by F. G. Miller High School’s Grade 8 students, who served up coffee, tea or juice, and who would later serve the buffet lunch.
Visitors browsed displays not only from FCSS, but also from Portage College’s CALP program, which offers a number of courses of interest to seniors, the Primary Care Network, Alzheimer Society, APIDAE Compassionate Care and FASD before FCSS Director Lynn Smid gave her welcome message, and told her audience that FCSS has been in Alberta over 50 years, with 201 programs currently across the province.
Eighty per cent of FCSS funding comes from the provincial government and the remaining 20 per cent from municipalities. St. Paul Regional FCSS regionalized in January and includes the towns of St. Paul and Elk Point and the County of St. Paul and offers programs for all ages, including income tax preparation through Canada Revenue and help in preparing Alberta Seniors Benefits forms.
Events such as the Seniors Week luncheon offer community connection, and Smid says she loves the interaction with seniors, “but we also have programs for babies and youth, these are just some of our programs.”
Elk Point Elementary School’s Grade 3 class were special guest entertainers, reading a series of fun poems, before a representative of the Primary Care Network informed the audience that the network includes foot care and kinesiology services. She emphasized the need for seniors, as for all ages, to stay hydrated, especially in hot weather, and followed up with a true-or-false quiz.
Smid said the Mallaig session the previous day featured a lawyer as guest speaker who emphasized the importance of having a Power of Attorney set up.
A photo quiz, with each table guessing the identity of performers from the Andrews Sisters of the 1940s to Elvis Presley and today’s entertainers, including 90-year-old Willie Nelson, and a round of ‘Name That Tune’ wrapped up the event with fun and laughter.