Blair & Marie Fletcher, who run the Hole-In-One contest at Fair Day, look on as Larry Smith presents a check for $1,000 to Bev Capen of Wardsboro.

The big news from the 55th Annual Grace Cottage Hospital Fair Day is that, in the cool of the afternoon, Beverly Capen of Wardsboro won the hole-in-one contest and walked away with the $1,000 check donated by En-tergy Vermont Yankee. Her only experience with golf has been occasional visits to miniature golf courses, and she sank the ball on her 52nd try of the day! The $1,000 Auxiliary raffle prize was won by Tamara Evanson of Brattleboro; Margaret Nixon of Wardsboro won the Montreal weekend, and the Mary Meyer teddy bear was won by Shirley Benson of Jamaica.

Auxiliary members will remember that there is an annual membership luxury trip drawing after the Fair. This year, the winner was Marga-ret Sterner of Pennsylvania, who graciously returned the money to the Auxiliary for Grace Cottage Hospital use.

The cool temperature that prevailed at Fair Day this year provided opportunities for folks to have fun on the Common all day. The Auction, with its many pieces of outstanding art, helped us to raise over $73,000, before expenses. Of course, none of this could have happened without the dedicated efforts of over one hundred volunteers, who set up the Fair, worked in the many booths during the day, and had the Common clean by Monday morning.

Additional news from the Grace Cottage Hospital Auxiliary is that our education fund is helping three hospital employees expand their medical skills. Tinna Wrobel and Amber LaRochelle are attending school to become registered nurses (RN’s), and Tanya Noyes is studying to become a laboratory technician. We support their work and wish them success in their ventures.

Last year, the Auxiliary board committed $45,000 to help redo the Kronemeyer house on Route 35 for the Adult Day program. It turned out that this location was not suitable for the Adult Day Program because: 1) The cost of renova-tion escalated enormously when agencies such as the Vermont Department of Labor & Industry got involved, and the project became prohibitively expensive, 2) an extensive building project on the site is about to be undertaken by Valley Cares, as they construct a 28-unit assisted living building and a 21-unit independent living structure. As a result, Grace Cottage has suspended the program, and the 11 people currently participating may choose to attend The Gathering Place in Brattleboro, or Springfield Adult Day in Springfield, depending upon which location is most convenient. Transportation will be provided by Connecticut River Transit.

In the meantime, the hospital has been warned by state surveyors applying federal Medicare regulations that the original hospital kitchen, which has been in service since 1949, may not pass federal standards the next time around. The plan is to relocate the kitchen, dining, and community room to the Adult Day space at the end of the new hospital building. This relocation would make it possible for Grace Cottage to receive about $200,000 annually from Medicare reimbursement dollars, only available for space that is used directly by a critical access hospital.

In light of the above situation, the Auxiliary board decided to commit our $45,000 from Fair Day 2004 to the new kitchen, on condition that the hospital undertakes the project in the near future. Furthermore, if the Auxiliary annual meeting attendees approve it, we will commit $32,000 of our $40,000 donation for 2006 to the hospital for the kitchen project as well. $5,000 will go for repairing the slate roof over the doctor’s offices, and $2,500 for carbon monoxide detectors in the hospital and Heins Home. Also, we will continue to provide $3,000 annually in the form of grants to Grace Cottage employees for their continuing education.

It has been a great year, and we thank the people of the West River Valley and surrounding areas for their continued support.