Local nursing home residents will receive roughly 300 mums and several pumpkins grown and cared for by Daviess County Detention Center (DCDC) inmates.
Jailer Art Maglinger said that they began growing the mums in July, and they just recently started blooming in time to be donated to local nursing homes. Maglinger said he does not have the greenest of thumbs, which is where the partnership with Faithful Friends Ministry came in.
The two organizations have worked together for a few years, donating pumpkins to local nursing homes. Faithful Friends had already donated all of their pumpkins to homes this year.
The mums will be delivered with anonymous cards from the inmates with words of encouragement.
Maglinger added that Todd and Marla Carter joined in on the fun, growing mums alongside the DCDC staff and inmates.
“This is a great new project,” Marla Carter said. “It’s essential to be able to bring life inside a nursing home,”
Carter said she has often come in and dropped off a Kleenex box or a box of food and seen the way the residents light up with excitement.
“They are so grateful for anything they get, and they’re going to be thrilled that the guys here took enough time to make these. This wasn’t just someone who went to the store and bought you something; this was someone who dedicated a lot of time and effort to it,” she said. “For that reason, they will be grateful to know they were remembered and not forgotten.”
The mums are being delivered to local nursing homes this week, with organizers still unsure where they’ll take them.
Providing the residents with the mums is a way that Maglinger said they can give back to the community. He equates the two groups as being able to bond over knowing that someone cares for them during the holiday season.
“It touched me just to see the population at homes,” Maglinger said. “If they don’t have family visiting them, they’re similar to the inmates in that they don’t always have people checking in on them. It seemed like the perfect way for us to give back.”
