Charles City Foster Grandparent Program celebrates with winter appreciation dinner

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Charles City Foster Grandparents Program foster grandmas and staff gathered for a day of games, lunch, snacks, prizes and entertainment Thursday.

The event, held at St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church, was the group’s annual winter appreciation dinner, this year dubbed the “Snowflake Ball.”

Entertainment was first provided by a group of 4- and 5-year-olds from St. John Christian Preschool, who performed several numbers, ending with a bell-accompanied “Jingle Bells.”

Special entertainment for the day was provided by Pastor Drew McHolm and his wife, Jesse Boatright, of the Little Brown Church in Nashua, professional singers who told stories and sang an assortment of popular 1950s and 1960s tunes mixed with Christmas songs, finishing with “Silent Night.”

Part of the day’s festivities was celebrating the retirement after more than 20 years of Colleen Ortmayer, who has served as a program field coordinator and was a foster grandparent herself.

The program provides foster grandparents for more than 20 child care, preschool and classroom sites in Floyd, Mitchell, Chickasaw and Cerro Gordo counties. Charles City has been the official local sponsor of the program for more than 30 years.

For more information about the Foster Grandparent program or becoming a foster grandparent, call 641-257-6327 or click the application link under the Foster Grandparent section of the Charles City website, www.cityofcharlescity.org.