‘We talk about everything’: First Tuesdays special at Edgecomb Green

Tue, 01/10/2017 - 7:15am

Margie Harris, 96, moved into Edgecomb Green about two months ago. “I’m the new kid on the block,” Harris said, smiling.

She is getting to know everyone who lives or works at the assisted living home and — thanks to a new, monthly gathering — some other community members, as well. Gail Boudin, a member of Edgecomb Community Church, United Church of Christ next door, regularly visits residents of the home. She offered to help organize the events, held from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. the first Tuesday of the month.

Edgecomb Green supplies the coffee; Boudin brings the Dunkin Donuts.

“I like the jelly,” Harris said in an interview Friday at the home, formerly Eddy School, at 31 Cross Point Road.

“I like about all of them. The cream-filled ones, those are good,” fellow Edgecomb Green resident Dorothy Watts said. The two women like the gatherings and look forward to them.

“We talk about everything. Everybody just says whatever they want. I enjoy it very much. It’s nice to meet all the different people. I think last time there were eight or nine here. There were two ladies I didn’t know,” Harris said. “Some come from the church,” she added. “Gail does a good job getting everybody together.”

“Gail has been a godsend,” Edgecomb Green’s manager Crystal Leeman, interviewed separately, said. “It has been going really well. It’s just a friendly gathering. It’s a chance for the residents to socialize,” Leeman said.

Boudin and another participant, Edgecomb Community Church pastor Kate Pinkham, said they are glad to spend time at Edgecomb Green. They praised the staff and Boudin noted the building holds nostalgia for her. She and her two daughters all attended Eddy School. Chalkboards remain from the school, she said. But the residents are why she offered to help with a monthly gathering: “It’s important to support our elders. They’re wonderful people and they have such rich histories.”

“They have wisdom,” Pinkham said. Like Boudin, she visits the home’s residents at other times, as well. “Some people don’t always have a lot of people come visit them, so it’s a reminder that someone cares, and they’re always so gracious and they’re so appreciative.”

Boudin said the participants in the monthly gatherings are a fun group of people. “I treasure the time there.”

The next gathering is Feb. 7 at the home. Harris said during Friday’s interview at a dining table, “I’d like to see if we could get a few more people to come to it.”

Boudin asked that anyone planning to attend call her at 380-7452 so enough chairs will be set up.