At Care Resources PACE, we celebrate individuals who embody community, connection, and resilience. Participant Moments showcase the stories of our amazing participants and their contributions to our community spirit. See below for our latest update.
June 17, 2025 – Linh N.
A lifelong giver?
That would be Linh N.
During the course of her nearly 60 years, Linh has served in virtually every capacity imaginable to help make life easier for others, beginning way back as a young girl growing up in her home country of Vietnam.
At her parents’ knees, she learned the value of community and how people need to reach out and support one another if the group as a whole is going to survive and thrive.
Inspired by that touchstone, she continued to embrace it after coming to the U.S. in 1989 when she was 22, the daughter of a Vietnamese woman and an American whom she says had served during the Vietnam War as an officer with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
Linh found work in a Grand Rapids area restaurant that specialized in Vietnamese cuisine, later enrolling at Chic University of Cosmetology where she earned a license to style hair and perform manicures.
She worked in that capacity for the better part of a decade, then branched out to perform numerous jobs that put her face-to-face with others in the area’s Vietnamese community. At one point, she owned a very popular coffee shop in Wyoming.
She combined those efforts with massive amounts of volunteering, and many in the Vietnamese are indebted to her for their transportation needs. She also served an untold amount of people who needed an interpreter to wade through bureaucratic red tape at courthouses, Secretary of State offices and the like.
“I never charged anybody – not even one dollar,” says Linh, whose generosity is legendary among those in the Vietnamese community, a close-knit group who began trickling into West Michigan following the fall of Saigon in 1975 and were sponsored by members of Grand Rapids-area churches.
“It’s a very tight community,” she asserts, “and people came to know me, and came to understand what I could do to help them.”
Stories about her giving nature are part of her legacy, including more than one instance where she has rallied others to pitch in so that a fellow countryman could afford a proper funeral.
“I like to help people,” she says, and that includes the friends and acquaintances she’s made here at Care Resource, where you’ll find her at least two days a week.
“This place offers such very good programs,” she says. “It takes care of me and so many other people, which makes me very happy and so appreciative.”
The mother of three grown children, Linh suffered a stroke at 58 that affects her left side and offers challenges with her speech and gait.
“I’m very grateful,” she says, “that I can come here and get physical therapy and occupational therapy, and someone even comes over to help me clean my apartment.”
People in similar circumstances, says Linh “would benefit from coming here as well, because they know how to provide the right kind of help.”
At Care Resources, says Linh, “they don’t treat you like a patient. They treat you like family.”
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May 20, 2025 – Lindy W.
To watch and listen to her today, it’s a little difficult to believe that once upon a time, Lindy W. was a wallflower who preferred to stay in the background.
But that was two years ago, when she first started coming to Care Resources.
Since then, she’s become the gal who boasts a shock of purple hair to purposely serve as a conversation starter. She’ll sit and gab with virtually anyone, completely willing to share tidbits like how when she was younger, she was pretty sure she was going to become a taxicab driver, a rock star or a person who cleans windshields at a service station!
“When I first came to Care Resources,” Lindy says, “I didn’t talk to anybody. I pretty much just sat and rocked.”
Over time, though, she grew to understand the nonprofit was a safe place to reach out to others and to share experiences. “I found there were people here always willing to listen. And that they were willing to listen to anything, complaints included. So I’ve been talking ever since.”
Born and raised in Kentwood, Lindy graduated from high school there in 1971. She then worked in the restaurant industry for more than two decades before becoming a pharmacy technician, following some in the footsteps of her father, who was a pharmacist and owned a pharmacy in Cutlerville.
“He was very knowledgeable and very caring, and the pharmacy had a post office and jewelry department and candy and such. My dad worked six days a week, and on Sundays after Mass, when it was closed, our family would all go there and run up and down the aisles and pick out a candy and have a hot dog and then lay out on blankets and take a nap in the storeroom.”
Impressed with the care and service her father dispensed, Lindy embraced the ways in which she, too, could help people sort through their health care needs: “I absolutely loved being in that medical career.”
Her professional life included developing a curriculum for the West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology and teaching classes at a Grand Rapids medical education center. Her work took her inside pharmacies, schools and medical institutions that included Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital- Corewell Health.
Before becoming a pharmacy tech, Lindy worked a spell at the now long-gone Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour at Woodland Mall, and she can still recite the alliterative jingles that wait staff happily blurted out to customers. She also worked for 25 years managing nearly a dozen different McDonald’s.
She counts her mother as the most influential person in her life and treasures photos she has of herself as a baby in her mom’s care. “You couldn’t miss the enthusiasm in her voice, and I miss her every single day, and I mean every single day,” she says softly.
Lindy grew ill with lymphoma in 2022 and underwent a full year of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. “I was sitting around and all by myself and wasn’t really getting that well, and I was lonely and needed something to do,” she recalls.
“I’d heard of Care Resources, and I was really in need of daytime activities, so I decided to try becoming part of it.”
Slow at first to involve herself, Lindy is now fully invested. “I did watercolors today,” she says proudly, “and I haven’t done that since kindergarten!”
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April 28, 2025 – Carol D.
To say Carol D. is infatuated with the late great actor John Wayne would be an understatement.
When he was on his deathbed, for instance, she sent flowers to his hospital room with instructions for the nurses to tell him “My name is Carol…and I am his Number One fan and I enjoyed all his movies and I love you.”
Since his death, Carol has embraced a constant dream of “becoming Mrs. John Wayne and living with him in a log cabin and going every day for hot air balloon rides because anything is possible in heaven!”
The Duke, however, is just one of many stars of the silver screen that Carol entertains in her imagination, as she’s a serious student of the silver screen.
She’s been known to rattle off the titles of movies and its stars with ease, talking in one moment about Maureen O’Hara and Gene Kelly and, in the next, anyone from Mel Gibson to Olivia Newton-John and dozens of others.
“I’ve been watching TV all my life,” she says with a smile.
Carol was born in Chicago in 1946 and lived as an infant in foster homes. At 2, she contracted a very serious case of whooping cough and was moved to the Coldwater State Home and Training School, an asylum that by 1960 was hosting nearly 3,000 patients. She lived there until she was 26 and has mostly fond memories of attending school and participating in gym classes, learning to ride a bicycle, attending dances, swimming in the pool there – and watching countless movies.
While living in an adult group home in Battle Creek, she worked in housekeeping at a nearby hospital and also served as a babysitter. In 1973, she moved to an apartment in Grand Rapids and worked in retail and at a mental health facility.
“I always loved taking care of people,” she says, recalling how when she was at Coldwater, she would help people with physical challenges into the pool for a relaxing swim.
Carol says her nearly fatal bout with whooping cough left her with brain and speech-related issues. “When I talk fast, I stutter,” she says, “and I have a learning disability.”
For more than a decade, Carol has lived independently in her own GR apartment, but leans on Care Resources for medical care and socialization. She enjoys playing bingo and participating in trivia contests – and she’s tough to beat when the questions revolve around movies and movie stars!
“I didn’t know much about Care Resources until my friend Matt told me, and that was about 12 years ago. I come here on the bus on Mondays and Wednesdays, and sometimes I get to enjoy a movie – and sometimes I just like to dance or be in the talent show.”
She smiles that smile again. “I can’t sing,” Carol says, “but I do a pretty mean polka!”
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April 3, 2025 – Frank S.
If anything, Frank S. understands both the value of hard work and the joy derived from quality leisure time.
After graduating from Ottawa Hills High School in 1972, he took on a factory job. He also worked in a plating facility and as a roofer. In his spare time, he worked on automobiles, something he learned how to do beginning back in high school, when he was enrolled at the Kent Skills Center. (His favorite auto ever? The Camaro SS!)
Frank lived many of his adult years in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, but more recently is a resident of Samaritas Senior Living of Grand Rapids. He first came to Care Resources about six years ago. He admits being reluctant in the beginning: “I was a little bit paranoid about getting into the program and being accepted,” he remembers.
But it didn’t take long for him to acclimate to the friendly environment at the day center, and he quickly embraced all the touchstones that continue to make his weekly visits a source of satisfaction and joy.
You can often find him painting with acrylics, usually specializing in landscapes. He also lifts weights on occasion and gravitates toward bingo games and exercise classes. “When I come here,” he says, “the people show you how to build and grow and expand your life in general, and I always find something to do that is useful.
“All of us have roadblocks in life, but the people here at Care Resources find ways to help you through them and the energy you need to move forward.”
A native of Grand Rapids, Frank enjoyed soccer, archery and building model cars as a youngster. He also loved to swim and has fond memories of the cool waters at Garfield Park pool.
He learned painting while at the knee of his father, an accomplished artist himself, and the motivation behind Frank’s love of art. “He’d paint anything,” says Frank, “and he used to produce a lot of artwork. He helped me develop the vision to do the same.”
Frank has entered at least one work in ArtPrize, and his works hang in the homes of friends and former neighbors. Frank also is a walking canvas of sorts, thanks to the tattoos he sports. They include a lightning bolt on his right hand that lashes out to exterminate the Aryan nation, which symbolizes Frank’s disdain of hate groups. Other tattoos feature a moon and stars and a crescent sun.
Frank is especially grateful when his sister, Patti, visits Care Resources. She’s part of a musical group called The Hootens that comes to play a time or two each year at the Day Center.
He also appreciates all the good vibes he receives from fellow participants, as well as Care Resources employees.
“Everyone here is so much in your corner,” he says. “Care Resources is a program for all kinds of people, and they’re all 100% behind you. I recommend it to anyone who wants to get some straight bearings in their life!”
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March 14, 2025 – Pat H.
By most accounts, Pat H. has had a challenging life.
But you won’t hear her complaining. Instead, she chooses to dwell on the gifts.
“Sometimes,” she says, “you’ve just got to take your medicine. Life? It is what it is.”
Born in Grand Rapids 77 years ago, Pat dropped out of Union High School at 16 to get married, which required her mother’s signature. She had two children before divorcing less than three years into the relationship. A third child was born later, and today, Pat counts five grandchildren and 18 “great-grands” among her extended brood.
Beginning in her teen years and well into adulthood, she labored at a variety of jobs – as a retail clerk, welder, health care worker and school bus driver. That last job she performed for 14 years, covering an array of routes for Grand Rapids Public Schools before retiring in 2014.
One of her most challenging stints was caring for seven kids during the day and then heading out to clean offices until 10 or 11 at night, something she did for nearly a dozen years.
Pat’s early childhood was a mixed bag. Though she loved frolicking at nearby Pulaski Park with three siblings and other neighbor kids, life at home included time spent with an alcoholic father who didn’t always provide: “Lots of days, it was just popcorn for dinner,” she recalls. “Or maybe biscuits and gravy. Sometimes, my grandmother would give us pork and beans from a can.”
Pat also endured more than one abusive relationship, and she whispers something about “black eyes” and “hair being pulled from my head” before letting the rest of her sentence evaporate.
Eventually, Pat came to lean on her Christian faith to sustain her. “I used to believe in God, but I didn’t practice it when I was living with an empty fridge. I’ve come to believe, though, that God came into and saved my life, and took me away from what I was – an alcoholic myself.”
Pat treasures her time at Care Resources, where her medical needs are met, and she gets to spend time with friends both old and new. That would include a participant whose grandson Terry used to ride on a school bus Pat piloted to and from the youngster’s school, where he was enrolled in special education classes.
“I was able to rekindle my relationship with Terry – he’s 21 now and lives in a group home – all because of Care Resources,” says Pat. “So do I like this place? Yes, very much!”
Through all of life’s ups and downs, Pat says she prefers to see the glass half full: “I tend to take things as they come,” she says. “And I tell myself it’s how you respond to tough times that makes your life what it is.
“I like this place and the comfort it provides,” she says, “and I love its people.”
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January 27, 2025 – Robert T.
Bowler. Car aficionado. Fisherman. Swimmer. But maybe most of all, proud grandfather and friend to all.
Meet Robert T., whose contagious smile and positive attitude help make Care Resources an even brighter place to spend time and receive care.
“If you haven’t got anything to do, and you want something to do, this is the place to make that change,” he says of the day center, where you’re apt to see him swapping stories with men and women who obviously enjoy the company of others.
“The people here? Well, I’d have to say they treat you more than good. I’d say it’s like love!”
Robert is Grand Rapids through and through, even though he was born in Arkansas. He moved here at a young age and attended Jefferson Elementary and the now long-gone South High School, dropping out so he could take a job at Comet Lanes, once a Grand Rapids bowling institution that operated for nearly five decades before shutting down in 2008.
Robert worked there at the start as a dishwasher, eventually earning enough coin to buy his first car – a 1966 Buick Wildcat convertible. He smiles at the memory: “I was somewhat of a wild child,” he says with a chuckle. “I fished, I bowled and I chased girls.”
But he also found time to devote to movies, noting: “At one time, it was all I thought about. I started recording movies when I was 16.” His all-time favorite is the 1998 flick “Blade,” starring Wesley Snipes as a half-vampire and half-mortal.
After leaving Comet Lanes, Robert worked as a parking lot attendant and later took a third-shift job at a foundry. The divorced father of nine makes his home in Grand Rapids and has fond memories of teaching all his children how to bowl and swim and fish, pastimes that he is now handing down to his 26 grandchildren.
He loves all his grandchildren dearly, but can’t help singling out brothers Jorden and Durral “Phat Phat” Brooks, both of whom were standout basketball players for Grand Rapids Catholic Central High School and have gone on to play college ball.
Durral earned his unusual nickname from his days as an especially chubby infant who was known to eat nonstop.
These days, Robert fishes whenever he can and has no less than a dozen poles ready to go, standing tall in his dining room. “I love to catch catfish the most,” he says, and has favorite spots on Reeds Lake, at the Grand River, and at an unnamed lake some 90 minutes north of Grand Rapids.
Just recently, he took a granddaughter out and she came away with a haul of 25 bluegills and speckled bass.
Robert loves to reminisce about swim lessons he’s given the grandkids, though he doesn’t get in the water as much as he used to. He shies away from ponds and lakes where the water’s cloudy, saying that “Ever since that move ‘Jaws’ came out, I don’t go swimming in water I can’t see through!”
At Care Resources, Robert enjoys bingo, playing trivia and being surrounded by people who care about him. Though a disease left him blind in one eye, he insists on staying active and has memorized virtually every city bus line so that transportation is rarely a problem.
The secret so far to his longevity? “I try to stay in good shape,” he says, adding with a smile that “You just need to keep movin’.”
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January 17, 2025 – Thomas M.
All his life, Thomas M. has sought out opportunities to help others, even though he’s also had to deal with needs that have plagued him since birth.
“I knew the word ‘catheter’ before I even knew how to say ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’” says the Manistee County native, who endured his first of some 50 surgeries just days after being born in order to address intestinal issues that have dogged him more than 60 years.
Despite health challenges, Thomas has led a full life. He’s been married twice and dotes on one son, who lives in Greenville. Being around so many health care professionals growing up convinced him to become a paramedic, and he secured a job with an ambulance company while living in the village of Kaleva, population 500 or so in Manistee County.
“Many of my patients died while holding my hand,” he recalls. “I was the last person they saw or talked to before they passed away, and I often said a prayer with them, and sometimes again with their surviving family members.”
Thomas also served as a volunteer firefighter in his hometown.
In what scant spare time he has, Thomas was able to build his own home – literally – by laying out the block basement, framing the 24-by-52-foot structure with little assistance, and doing much of the plumbing, electric and roofing with limited help. This was long before the Internet and YouTube self-help videos were available, so he relied on books and magazine articles to guide him through the process.
These days, Thomas lives alone in a Kentwood apartment and has few close friends. “A lot of Sundays, I go to church and come home and sit in my recliner and cry out of loneliness.”
But Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays are much better, he says, because that’s when he visits Care Resources and not only receives medical care but is able to connect socially with others.
“My experience with Care Resources has been phenomenal,” he says. “They continually exceed my expectations. Every time I have the opportunity to talk with a manager, I tell them how well they and their people are doing. I don’t have words to describe it.”
Thomas is part of a new initiative at Care Resources called “Support Partners.” It was founded out of a need to control “senior bullying,” which is when people engage in negative talk or behavior toward their peers, a growing problem in some senior communities.
Sometimes, says Thomas, he’ll notice someone is having a bad day, and he’ll gently pull up a chair and offer to chat. If they’re in need of a hug, he’s willing.
“The key is to treat them with kindness,” he says. “Some people just need someone else to love them.”
Thomas has a philosophy for a life well-lived: “Seek out positive people as your core group,” he says. “Also, live the way God wants you to live.”
One more thing, he notes: “Never, ever give up on yourself.”
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Last updated 6.17.2025 I H5610_WEB
