I showed Kassi Gormley, the Mansion Director, the art Sue Silverstein created and donated to the Mansion to hang on the mostly bare walls of the new Mansion Memory Care Center, set to open in the next few weeks.

She loved them, as does everyone there. I am giving her one of those paintings for her office. She’s entitled to some soothing as well.

Red and I had been to at least a dozen different elder care facilities in this area, but when I came into the Mansion, I felt right away that this was a special place, different from the others I had visited.

For those who don’t know, Sue Silverstein is the Art Teacher and Theology Chair at the Bishop Maginn  High School. She is the guide and guardian angel of a gifted band of refugee students I call the Silverstein Art Brigade.

Like the people who work at the Mansion, Sue has a big and inexhaustible heart, she is there for everyone who needs here, day or night, 24 hours a day. The other morning, I learned, she was at the school with some volunteer students bringing vegetables from the school’s garden to a nearby food pantry.

There was a feeling of love and caring that I encountered at the school that reminded me of the Mansion.

I had not often encountered this.  So many assisted care facilities seem joyless and cold, the residents seem almost in a vegetative state.

That is not what the Mansion feels like, and as a volunteer, I have felt and seen this love and caring first hand day in and day out. The residents there are animated, engaged, verbal and aware. That’s important to Kassi.

She just loved Sue Silverstein’s paintings, and I told her I am asking for help in getting them framed so that they can be hung. Maria, who was a framer once, is picking out the frames – to save money, we’re going for black metal.

I’ve asked for help in raising the $500 we estimate will be needed to frame this paintings in the most inexpensive way, and I’ve received between $250 and $300 so far, I am donating also. We’ll frame as many as we can with the money we get. I’ll raise the money.

The staff was just agog over the beauty of these paintings, they are beautiful, uplifting and soothing. Perfect for the walls of the new Memory Care Center. Sue’s donation was something of a miracle, I was trying to figure out how we would fill those bare walls.

If you wish to contribute, you can do so via Paypal, [email protected], or by check, Jon Katz, Memory Walls, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. Thanks.

Kassi and Red.