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News Feature

Deer Isle
Originally published in Island Ad-Vantages, February 21, 2013
May I have this dance?
INH kicks off 30th anniversary with Valentine’s Prom Dance

INH Valentine’s Prom Dance

Activities Director Harry Rodriguez and resident Mary Heanssler hit the dance floor.

Photo by Anne Berleant

Muriel Saindon wears a mink stole donated for the Island Nursing Home Valentine’s Prom by the Reach Performing Arts Center.

Photo by Anne Berleant

Cheek-to-cheek, husband and wife Shirley and Dan Danielson help celebrate the Island Nursing Home’s 30th birthday.

Photo by Anne Berleant

Administrator Marc Plourde thanks the residents and their families and the staff and volunteers at the Island Nursing Home’s Valentine’s Prom Dance on February 15.

Photo by Anne Berleant

Lester Lewis was crowned prom king.

Photo by Anne Berleant

by Anne Berleant

The Island Nursing Home crowned residents Lewis Lester and Lenora Burton king and queen of the Valentine Prom, but this was only one of many fanfare moments as INH marked its 30th birthday on February 15.

While every February the staff, volunteers and residents celebrate the day the nursing home and care center first opened its doors, this year was extra special.

“It’s an extravaganza because it is the 30th year,” said Residential Care Coordinator Becky Seibert.

Board President Deborah DeWitt and administrator Marc Plourde said they would be celebrating the anniversary with bigger events this summer.

The prom-themed dance ended a week of residents first choosing formal wear donated by Queen’s Closet and the Tree of Life’s Turn-Style clothing store, then posing for “glamour shots,” courtesy of photographer Leslie Cote Hale, with mink stoles donated for the event by the Reach Performing Arts Center.

Volunteers helped with makeup and hemming the dresses, and Fairwinds Florist donated the flowers for corsages and to decorate the “dance hall.”

“It was a brilliant idea,” said Board President Deborah DeWitt. “Thirty years is pretty exciting.”

After the photos, the dancing, the crowning of the king and queen and the cupcakes and the “champagne” toast, residents were treated to limousine rides around the Island by B.K. Burgess, Inc. of Deer Isle.

“We’ve done a lot of different events but we’ve never done prom,” said Seibert. “I’ve never seen the excitement I’ve seen for this.”

Plourde toasted “Island Nursing Home’s 30 years of caring,” and thanked its residents and their families “for giving us the desire to do better.”

He also thanked the staff and volunteers. “We, as a community, we’re very blessed to have such kind and caring people. It’s an honor for me to be here.”

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