Parkside residents pitch in for nursing home in Joplin

Residents at Parkside Homes in Hillsboro assembled 150 snack bags June 3 to help nursing home staff and residents living in Joplin, Mo., following the devastating tornado May 22 that killed more than 120 people and damaged 10,000 buildings.

Greenbriar Nursing Home, one of six skilled nursing facilities in Joplin, was directly in the tornado?s path. It claimed the lives of 10 residents and one employee.

Although nobody was killed in the two other nursing facilities, they both sustained considerable damage, forcing the relocation of the residents.

Gretchen Wagner, administrator at Parkside Homes, said Hillsboro residents wanted to do something to help. Cheri Kauf?man, a social worker at Park?side, was instrumental in getting the project off the ground.

Wagner said Kaufman contacted the Kansas Association of Homes and Services for the Aging and the Kansas Health Care Association to find out what would be helpful.

Kaufman was interested in assisting employees who continued coming to work and caring for the elderly while their own families were picking up their lives from the tornado.

Volunteers distributed flyers to Hillsboro businesses and groups asking for plastic sealable bags, fruit bars, canned meats or fruits, crackers, nuts and plastic utensils.

One resident at Parkside, Ione Morford, said she knows what these people are going through, having survived the 2007 Greensburg tornado that leveled 95 percent of the town.

Morford said her home was destroyed, but she salvaged a few pieces of furniture and some personal photographs.

?Everything was on the ground,? she said. ?There was no house standing.?

About 15 residents at Park?side then put the snack packs together, which were then combined with 20 other collection sites in Kansas.

?A volunteer agreed to truck the items to Joplin for distribution,? Wagner said.

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