(Courtesy Photo) Joining in the Eldercare Block visit were (from left, front row): Goddard House’s Jim Stamatopoulos and Carmen Wornum; Mount Pleasant’s Gwen James; Boston Commissioner on Elderly Affairs Emily Shea; (back row) Goddard House’s Jim Sugrue and Emmanuel Freddura; Nathaenael Shea of state Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz’s office; Jullianne Doherty, JP Neighborhood Coordinator for the Mayor’s Office; and Sherrill House’s Josh Hammond.
The Goddard House, the Sherrill House and the Mount Pleasant Home—three elder care organizations on S. Huntington Avenue—gathered May 14 to celebrate National Nursing Home week.
The event, which started at the Goddard House with refreshments and speeches and then went on to tour the other two facilities, was billed as the “JP Eldercare Block Visit.”
“It was a great opportunity to partner with the three elder care organizations to show [the public] who we are,” said Ginny Mazur, the community partnership director at the Goddard House and a JP resident.
Mayor Thomas Menino was supposed to speak at the event, but a schedule mishap prevented him from attending.
“It appears that may have been an unfortunate miscommunication,” wrote John Guilfoil, deputy press secretary at the mayor’s office, in an email to the Gazette. “This was not an event that was ever on the mayor’s schedule. The mayor had a completely full schedule on Monday, and this was unfortunately not an event that we could fit in.”
Mazur said the event raised awareness of the elder care organizations in the community. She said combined, the three organizations have more than 360 years of history and about 400 residents. They have their differences in missions and in some ways compete, but get along as neighbors.
“It was really a thrill for us to have the public, officials and local merchants here,” said Mazur.
Mazur noted there is not a lot of reasons for people visit the eldercare block, located on S. Huntington Avenue.
“We don’t have a J.P. Licks to get a lot of foot traffic,” she said.
“For us, it was a real success for getting people down here.”