The Advisory Council of the Herkimer County Office for the Aging Wednesday presented its Senior Citizen of the Year Award to Lucy Brown of Little Falls and its Outstanding Contribution Award to Ernest Maine of Newport.
Brown and Maine were honored during the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program of Herkimer County’s twenty-fourth annual recognition luncheon at the Knights Inn in Little Falls.
Brown retired in 1986 and has been working ever since as a volunteer.
She has spent years helping out at Little Falls Hospital, with 14 years dedicated to the outpatient department alone. Brown was also a member of the “Flying Fingers” brigade at the hospital, and kept busy addressing and labeling envelopes for their annual fund drives.
An active member of the former Sacred Heart Church, Brown helped to clean the church, worked on dinners, baked for their baked good sales and performed a variety of other activities. She also assisted the St. Mary’s religious education program for 10 years, working as an aide, and made contributions to the parish as a member of the Renew team.
Brown was the secretary of the Rock City Seniors for 20 years from 1988 to 2008. She has volunteered for 16 years for the Little Falls Food Pantry, Community Food Sense Program and Kateri’s Thrift Shop, even serving as the store manager on a number of occasions.
In addition, she served as a member of the DeCarlo-Staffo Post and was acting president for two years.
Brown, who is cared for by her nephew Barry and his wife Jean and their two sons, Quintin and Mitchell Smith, enjoys reading, loves to “bake up a storm,” is an avid sports fan — especially baseball and basketball — and will continue to volunteer for as long as she can.
Maine has been helping the community in many ways for years.
On behalf of the Kuyahoora Senior Citizens Club, he approached a businessman from Newport and received a donation for the group to help pay for the heat at the Masonic Temple where they meet. He has volunteered at the Masonic Temple in Newport by painting walls, varnishing woodwork, performing minor repairs, washing windows and seeing that the lawn is mowed and the snow plowed.
He also mows and plows for many seniors in Newport at no charge, and if they do manage to pay, he buys them something.
Maine is active in the Newport Revitalization Program and volunteers his truck to water flowers along Main Street in the summer and mows an area along the West Canada Creek fishing area outside Newport. He built a handicapped ramp for a senior who needed it for her husband who was in a wheelchair, and solicits bingo prizes each year for the Herkimer County Senior Citizens Picnic. He also organized a horseshoe league in Newport, and helps at the Newport Food Pantry when needed for large orders.
In addition, he tends to a large garden and gives most of the produce to seniors and friends.
Maine is married to Leona (Gokey) Maine and they have two sons, Berton Maine and his wife Deb and the late Michael Maine and his wife Martha, and two daughters, Delia and her husband Richard Jachimecki and Erna and her husband Eric Newman. They also have nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Little Falls, N.Y. —
