Nurses Find Healthy Dose Of Kindness
Cyd Savoy and Jo Johnson have $92,000 and a homeless shelter to prove Sandpoint is healthy with humanitarianism.
“Everyone said we couldn’t do it,” Jo says.
“But no one ever said, ‘Give up,”’ adds Cyd. Fast-talking Cyd and her buddy Jo are retired Air Force nurses with the drive and energy of an F-15 Eagle.
Sandpoint gave birth to Blue Haven seven months ago after a year of gestation and two years of backbreaking labor. The project nearly miscarried several times. But, with military doggedness, Jo and Cyd kept it alive.
“Every time we thought it would never make it, another miracle would come through,” Jo says.
Jo volunteers in Sandpoint’s food bank and sees dozens of homeless families. She, Cyd and others formed the Bonner County Homeless Task Force in 1991 and for 18 months bombarded the community with the message that people were living in nearby forests, in cars, with friends.
It worked. One man donated a 6,000-square-foot house that the task force had to move. A woman gave the $14,500 for a new site. Pancake breakfasts and fun runs and pledges raised $92,000 in three years.
“Going to people and showing them statistics, the need - that was the trick,” Jo says, still awed by Sandpoint’s generous outpouring.
To renovate the home, Jo and Cyd put rooms up “for adoption.” There weren’t enough for all the volunteers.
First Presbyterian’s Sunday school kids bought towels for the upstairs bathrooms. First Lutheran’s youth group painted two bedrooms lavender and sewed flowered quilts for four beds. Northern Lights utility company painted murals on the playroom walls. And so on …
Blue Haven sparkles now. Families have moved in and begun job training toward a fresh start. But Cyd and Jo are working as hard as ever.
“It’s an accomplishment,” Cyd says, moving briskly through the sun-filled upstairs. “But it’s just the first step. We can help them get on their feet, but where in Sandpoint is affordable housing? Now we need to go to the next step.”
Pet peeves
Patty the boxer - a pooch, not a pugilist - doubled the grocery bill at Bill and Roxie Williams’ Hauser Lake home. Roxie writes that Patty has eaten nine loaves of banana bread at one time, a chicken cooling on the counter and the top of the Williams’ wedding cake.
But last Christmas was her most memorable meal. Roxie went shopping and locked Patty in the bathroom where there was no food. Didn’t stop Patty. She ate two bars of soap and blew bubbles all evening. The vet had to clean her out.
If Mable Hanson’s food bill is too high, she can put her cat Hobbs to work in the circus. Hobbs climbs the furniture in her Coeur d’Alene home until she reaches the curtains, walks across the curtain tops to the grandfather clock where she rests a moment, then heads back. Mable’s never seen her fall.
Keep those animal tales coming. Any great rescues to brag about?
Soup’s on
Coeur d’Alene’s St. Pius X Catholic Church has taken a new spin on the weekly collection plate. One Sunday each month, the congregation brings food for its offering at the service. The church then takes it to local food banks or St. Pius’ soup kitchen. Parishioner Agnes Moberg says other churches should do the same and put the soup kitchen out of business someday…
Sad grads
You put 18 years of hard work into your children and poof! - they’re gone the day after high school graduation. But you could tell funny and heartbreaking stories about them for hours.
So go ahead. But do it in writing and share the stories of your graduating children with Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, 83814; fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128 and make me cry.