FAIRBORN — Residents at Wright Rehabilitation in Fairborn will have a little something to brighten their experience this holiday season. The Fairborn High School marching band hosted its annual poinsettia fund-raiser, and acquired nearly 300 poinsettias for Wright Rehab and other nursing homes in the area.
The fund-raiser, which was conducted primarily online, was a massive success. In addition to raising funds for the marching band, approximately 35 people and businesses contributed just shy of $2,000 to provide poinsettias to nearly 300 individuals living in nursing homes or long-term care facilities in the area.
Wright Rehabilitation was one of those facilities.
“Wright Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center, a skilled nursing facility in Fairborn, Ohio, received a very heartfelt donation from the members of the Fairborn Community,” the organization said a release.
“The students are very big-hearted individuals and their touch of holiday cheer was very well received here,” said Wright Rehab Administrator Greg Nijak. “Their poinsettia donation was a very meaningful gesture that benefitted so many people in our community. This is what the Fairborn community represents — pitching in and helping each other.”
It wasn’t just the band boosters that contributed to the residents’ holiday cheer. For the city of Fairborn, this was a community-wide effort. School board member and band parent Mary Reaster described the support they received as “humbling.”
“The response was overwhelming,” she said. “Whether it was a financial contribution, the schools making cards, people helping to sort, those who helped deliver, even the [nursing home] facility staff helping to deliver them, it was truly a community effort.”
In total, the fund-raiser supplied poinsettias for each of 140 residents at the Dayton VA, approximately 65 poinsettas for all residents at Wright Rehab, and 90 for each resident at Trinity Community in Fairborn. The flowers sent to the Dayton VA were accompanied by cards and holiday well-wishes from Fairborn Primary School students.
“It’s the people who don’t have family to come to see them or can’t come see them because of health issues,” Reaster said. “Not being able to interact, it takes a toll on mental health. We just wanted to make sure that they knew they were still important.”
