The WCA Home has lots of exciting renovations coming up in the spring. The first project has been completed! We expanded and renovated our rec room and renamed it The Community Room. The residents and staff officially toasted the grand opening with a toast. The new room is being enjoyed by all!
Antoinette Arnone is the WCA Home’s Resident of the Month for March 2014.
Antoinette is 97 years old and was born and raised in Dunkirk and graduated from Dunkirk High School. After finishing high school, she began work at Van Raalte as a machine operator and worked there for 15 years. After the plant closed, she worked for the next 10 years, until retirement, at SUNY at Fredonia in food service and oversaw student workers in the dish rooms.
In 1937, Antoinette met and eventually married Benjamin Arnone and were married for 60 years before he passed. Benjamin was a brick layer for Allegheny Ludlum, the local steel company. Together, Antoinette and Benjamin had a son and daughter and enjoyed traveling with their family. Some family trips included Washington DC, Canada, North Carolina, Arizona, California and Quebec.
Always active with family and friends, Antoinette still found time to belong to the Wednesday Senior Citizen Group in Dunkirk and was Secretary of the Blessed Sacrament at Holy Trinity Church. She still enjoys being active and takes part in the daily exercise program at the WCA Home and plays bingo but admits she misses baking pies and cookies as she used to do.
Antoinette became a resident at the WCA Home in December of 2014 and says that everyone at the Home is very good to her; she gets great care and enjoys lots of company.
Amber Greene is the WCA Home’s employee of the month for March.
Amber was born and raised in Dunkirk and graduated from Dunkirk High School in 2006 and now resides in Portland. She worked and completed her classes to become a PCA and has been employed by the WCA Home since June 30, 2013
Besides work, Amber has two sons, ages 4 years and 13 months and one daughter who is 9 years old. She says that she leads a very full and busy life with her children and working. For a family outings, Amber and her family enjoy summer camping in Erie and all the summer fairs and carnivals.
Working at the WCA Home brings joy to Amber as many of the ladies will ask specifically for her to assist them. While Amber says that she has no favorites, she does feel very special towards all the ladies and enjoys listening to them and helping them with their needs. As per Amber, they “make my day”.
The WCA Home is very happy to have Amber as part of our “family”.
Lucille Salhoff is the WCA Home’s Resident of the Month for February. Lou, as she likes to be called, became a resident of WCA Home in September of 2012.
Lou was born and raised in Fredonia and has spent most of her life in the area. She graduated from Fredonia Central School, with her first job being at the Laona Red and White Grocery. Lou is a lifelong member of the Laona United Methodist Church and enjoyed being very active in her church.
Lou smiles when she talks about her family. She has a son who lives in Florida and a daughter who lives in Fredonia. Lou also has two grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
For many years until retirement, Lou worked for Interstate United which was responsible to provide workforce for local school lunch programs in our area. Lou worked on an as needed basis for mainly the Fredonia and Brocton school cafeterias. She would go in early in the morning to assist with lunch preparation, assist in serving the meal or be cashier for the lunch room students. Lou says that she really loved working with the children and never looked at her job as work. “The children would make my day”.
It was September of 2012 that Lou moved into the WCA Home and she readily tells you that she has made a lot of new friends and she goes on to say that it is a lovely place to live. She loves to be active and is involved in most outings and can usually be found in the activities room doing daily exercises, having a snack, working on a project or – doing something she has really taken charge of and that is washing dishes used in the activities room.
Lou is a welcomed addition to our Home.
Sally Hafner is WCA Home’s Employee of the Month for February.
Sally grew up in the Forestville area and graduated from Forestville Central School. After graduation, Sally took several computer classes at JCC North and earned a Certificate in Early Childhood Development. As a single mom, Sally raised her son and daughter alone and says that she has always worked at different jobs involving people and food.
Working in different jobs within the food industry for almost 20 years, Sally’s dream has been to someday attend a culinary arts school and open her own restaurant. Sally also enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, walking, swimming, bike riding and spending time with her cats.
Sally started working at WCA Home in May of 2012 as a part time kitchen aide but now is full time and works in activities and transportation.
Sally says she loves working at WCA Home and thinks everyone here is “wonderful”. Sally’s energy and thoughtfulness shows every day as she is so involved with every resident with a “can do” attitude and warm personality.
Looking to the future, Sally hopes to visit Oklahoma for a 3rd time later this year.
Congratulations, Sally, and thank you for all you do.
Our congratulations go out to Joyce Sheldon, the WCA Home Resident of the month for January.
Joyce grew up in the Gowanda area and completed her basic schooling at Cattaraugus Central School. After graduation, Joyce worked a number of different jobs before going to work at Tri-County Hospital. Joyce worked at Tri-County Hospital until her retirement.
Joyce was a very active member of the Wesley Methodist Church where she taught and was Executive Director of Sunday school for many years. Joyce took on many responsibilities as a dedicated church member. Besides being very active in her church, she found time to be a long-term member of the Wesley Home Bureau.
Joyce has been a resident of the WCA Home since August of 2013. While it has been an adjustment for Joyce to no longer live near her friends, her friends have “picked up the ball” and frequently call her, visit and take her out to lunch or shopping
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Congratulations to Aaron Smith, WCA Home Housekeeping Supervisor and WCA’s Employee of the Month.
Aaron was born and raised in the Fredonia area and graduated from Fredonia High School. Aaron, his wife Emily, and dog Tippy, live in Fredonia in a home they just moved into a little over a year ago.
Aaron and Emily were married about two years ago and enjoy going on trips and to concerts and working around their new home.
All the decorations for the different holidays and seasons are done by Aaron throughout the WCA Home. It is barely noticeable how well he changes things so the home just casually slides from one season to another. He is truly talented and enjoys the decoration part of his job. As Housekeeping Supervisor, Aaron is in charge of keeping the very large Victorian home always neat and shinning. So often we hear visitors comment on how very clean everything is.
Aaron is also responsible for much of the outside gardens and decorations. He enjoys working with outside plants at the WCA Home and his own home. He has a true eye for color and placement.
When asked what he most particularly likes about the WCA Home, Aaron says being here with all the residents. He truly takes an interest in every resident and quite often you will hear one of the ladies say, “let Aaron do it, he know how to make it look so beautiful”. Aaron also enjoys his job because as he says, “we are all a close-knit family”.
Aaron contributes much to the Home itself but also to each resident’s life.
The residents and staff of the WCA Home were honored to host a wedding on January 20, 2014. Our very own HHA extraordinaire, Keri Campbell (now Green), shared her special day with us. All the residents attended and dressed up with some special hats. The ceremony was beautiful and memorable for everyone. We were all honored to be a part of Keri and Duane’s special day!
