Handmade comfort for children
Trips to the Leo Jenkins Cancer Center at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville are proving consoling for some sick children. Susan Baker and Katherine Pierce, members of the Southwood Ruritan Club, deliver handmade items to make treatments a little easier for the children in the cancer and sickle cell unit.
Members of the Club, Southwood Memorial Christian Church and Gordon Street Christian Church meet a couple of times a month to work on such projects. The results are items to warm and comfort children during and after treatments. The skull caps are given to children as they lose their hair. They are made from the scraps of making the blankets.
In two recent trips, donations included 110 blankets, 131 skull caps, 162 stuffed animals and 60 scarves. Now that this is complete they will start all over. This is the third time in two years that donations such as this have been made to the unit.
Each child is given a stuffed animal when they go into treatment as a means of security to help ease the pain. When the treatment is over, they are usually cold and can select a blanket of their choice. These items stay with the child the entire time they are in the hospital and when they go home.
Bridge club names winners
The Fairfield Duplicate Bridge Club played a regular game on Sept. 3.
The winners were: Dayle Pond and Edith Cahn, first place; Dorothy Taylor and Nancy Barwick, second; Pinkey Harper and Geneva Hood, third; and Joe Goldwasser and Lamar Finch, fourth.
A sectional tournament at clubs (STaC) game will be played at 9:50 a.m. Tuesday at Fairfield Center. This competition among many clubs in several states awards silver points to the winners.
The club welcomes and encourages all bridge players. For more information, call 252-523-6791.
Mystery Dinner Theater to launch Sept. 14
The Grainger-Hill Performing Arts Center will launch its Mystery Dinner event, “A Dinner to Die For,” at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 14 at Olivia's at Frenchman's Creek.
The $40 ticket cost per person includes the meal. Wine and beer are extra.
Area actors will present a historical murder mystery staged during the Civil War period and based on facts about Kinston's Sugar Hill, complete with period costumes. Emcee is Alison Merritt and the narrator is Wilbur King.
Characters include Anne Johnson, the Madam; Nora Parker, Sugar Hill girl; Thomas Bailey, sheriff; Bill Taylor, forger; Teresa Sumner, land owner's wife and principal playwright; Dedra Houston, slave; Lysa Mackey, whiskey woman; Stephen Alford, CSS Neuse sailor; Katie Griffith, whiskey woman's daughter; and Ann Brinson.
Rotating monthly at area restaurants, the Oct. 11 show will be at 6:30 p.m. at King's Restaurant. The Nov. 8 show will be at the Kinston Country Club and a later event (to be announced) will be held at Chef and the Farmer.
To reserve spaces, call 252-521-4513 or check the Grainger-Hill Web site, ghpac.com. A portion of the theater events is tax deductible since Grainger-Hill is a nonprofit organization. Make checks payable to Grainger-Hill PAC.