I Have a Little Story About a Gentleman Who Was Very Proud of His Sweet Potatoes.

Working in a facility, you may have 50 to 100 people who have all different interests and hobbies, but I think many people love gardening.

In the facility where I worked, we haven’t had many farmers, and one of my favorites, Leroy, loved growing sweet potatoes. He bragged about his sweet potatoes and had a huge picture in his room of a big wagon full of sweet potatoes with him standing next to it. And he showed everyone that would look.

So, of course, my idea was to plant a garden. I’d like to say I have a green thumb, but I have never had a lot of luck with sweet potatoes. So, we grew our garden, and even though they couldn’t plant things on their own, for a lot of people, they took a lot of joy in telling me where to plant the things and how far apart, and how much water to give each plant. So that brought them joy.

When it became time to harvest the sweet potatoes, I realized that they were not very healthy-looking; in fact, they looked like little stringy carrots!

In order to save the day and bring Leroy a moment of joy, I went to the grocery store. I bought the biggest sweet potatoes I could find and brought them back to the facility.

We harvested our tomatoes and some of the other vegetables that we were successful in growing and had a roadside stand at the facility. We made them all happy.

I hope that you can come up with some creative ways to bring your loved one a moment of joy.

Karen Francis

Memory care expert at Maria’s Place

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For more from Maria's Place, see Tommy's story here.