Veterans home unit celebrates anniversary

BANGOR – There was food, music and plenty of dancing at the one-year anniversary celebration of the Residential Life Unit of the Maine Veterans Home on Friday.

Residents enjoyed a barbecue and live band music in the residential life E unit courtyard, as awards were presented to several residents. Children with American flags in hand tugged at the sleeves of residents sitting under the shade of picnic table umbrellas, encouraging them to dance on the courtyard’s brick walkway, which served as a makeshift dance floor.

The residential life unit of the Maine Veterans Home opened roughly a year ago to serve veterans who suffer from dementia and the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s.

Shirley Shannon, 46, of Newburgh is the activity director for the unit. “Our residents would not be safe out in the community on their own,” Shannon said. “A lot of them are still very capable, which makes my life working in activities very challenging, because they still want to go 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Joan Mayo, 66, and her husband, Bob, 69, lived in Skowhegan until they moved into the residential life unit just a month ago. Bob served in Korea.

“Oh, it’s fabulous,” said Joan of life at the unit.

Mary Sirois, the residential care director, credited Steve Gaudette, the former CEO of the Bangor Veterans Hospital, with laying the groundwork for the unit. The unit “was a dream of Steve Gaudette’s. He has since, unfortunately, passed away suddenly from a heart attack,” said Sirois.

“But [the veterans home] continued on with his vision of doing something more and providing assisted living for the veterans, particularly for demented veterans that are harder to place,” she said.

Awards were presented to the residents who had been at the unit the longest. George Brountas, one of the residents who received an award, took the microphone from Shannon, who was presenting, and sang an energetic rendition of “You Are My Sunshine.”

The awards took the form of four coffee mugs made by Glenn Jordan, 48, of Charleston.

Jordan runs Impressing Memories, a business that makes custom coffee mugs for veterans and their families.

“I call it operation muggetry,” said Jordan.

“One of these four mugs was made possible by a lady in Pennsylvania who bought a mug and asked that I give it to a veteran in a home here,” Jordan said.

The other three mugs were donated by American Legion Post 43 in Belfast.