The WCA Home Resident for the Month of June is Grace Berdych.

Grace Berdych was born and raised in Dunkirk, where she attended St. Hyacinth Parochial School.   Berdych never got to finish a high school education as her father passed away and she had to leave school to help her family.

For many years Berdych worked at Van Raalte and would travel past School 10 (Industrial High School) and quite often would see young men outside on a break.  Florian Berdych was one of the young men and he took particular note of her and eventually introduced himself and the couple married several years later.  In the years that followed, the couple was blessed with a son and a daughter.

Berdych always worked to help support the family and after leaving Van Raalte she worked picking and tying grapes and then as a clerk and later as manager of the D&K Store at the D&F Plaza in Dunkirk.  Besides working outside the home, Berdych was a member of the Hose #3 Auxiliary and a devoted parishioner in the Blessed Mary Angela RC Church.

Berdych was very family oriented.  Family members remember the homemade popcorn balls she made for everyone at Christmas time and that it was she who was the caregiver for other family members in need of support.  Berdych was always the one to care for elderly family members.

One of the highlights in Berdych’s life came in the early ‘60’s when she was working at Ceases Commissary and they did the catering for a large rally held in Buffalo to support John F. Kennedy for President.  Berdych worked the event and got a close look at that time of the future President Kennedy.

When asked if she likes her stay at the WCA Home, Berdych comments that she likes all the people and being around other people.

Christine (Chris) Hoyt is the WCA Home Employee of the Month for June. 

Born in Rochester, NY, Hoyt graduated from Brockport High School and then went on for two years of training at the Highland School of Nursing in Rochester.

Hoyt lost much of her eyesight in the years that followed and attended the Association for the Blind in Albany.  She took her learning experience and went on to work for the Association for the Blind in Rochester Low Vision Clinic, later worked as the director of a senior center in Barker, New York and held several other jobs until she joined the staff at the WCA Home in 2003 as a PCA.  Her retirement in 2013 was short lived as she came back to work two days a week at the WCA Home as an activities aide and still enjoys her part-time job.

Family is very important to Hoyt.  She now resides in Fredonia with her mother, having raised her two sons and now enjoying her three grandchildren; Kaylee, Kaleb and Benjamin, who she calls the “light of my life”.  Hoyt spent two years in Germany, where her first son was born, has been on five missionary trips to Hati, enjoyed traveling to California, Florida, Maui and lived in El Paso for two years.

Hoyt is current Chairperson for the Friends of WCA Home (a volunteer group) and is very active in her parish activities at St. Joseph RC Church in Fredonia.  For St. Joseph’s, she is instrumental in organizing their regular card parties, baking for them and helping with other parish functions.

In speaking about the residents of the WCA Home, Hoyt says that …”all the ladies are like my grandmothers and I take care of them as if they were”, …”I just adore the ladies and being with them is special, sometimes all they need to feel better is a hug – that is why I am here”.

Hoyt is a truly dedicated employee who is a natural caregiver and a true friend to the residents at the WCA Home.