Residents and staff celebrate 101st anniversary for the Good Samaritan Society in Arthur

ARTHUR, N.D. — 2023 marks the 101st anniversary for the Good Samaritan Society in Arthur North Dakota, the location where the organization was first founded.

To celebrate National assisted living week, residents and staff engaged in sweet activities. They spent Monday, Sept. 11, and Tuesday, Sept. 12, picking 80 quarts of grapes from the arbor in the prayer garden in the senior living center’s backyard.

“This is time for us to celebrate all that we do throughout the year to improve the lives of those we care for and so this just kind of made us stop and connect with each other and talk about passed lived experiences,” said Good Samaritan Society administrator Mary Vangerud Leraas.

Picking the grapes was the first step of making their own homemade jam.

“I enjoyed the picking and also the peeling and the smashing of the grapes,” said resident Karol Dupree. “It kind of reminded me of when my mom and dad used to do homemade canning and make jelly and kind of brought me back to the old days when they used to that for all of their food.”

“Coming from a younger generation, I love hearing the stories of them seeing their smiles and their eyes brighten talking about those childhood memories that get brought up during this process,” said resident assistant Chloe Fleming.

On Wednesday they shared more experiences when seeding the pulps, combining the peels with juices from the pulp, and adding sugar that was then boiled and put into jars. They made 101 jars in gift baskets in honor of 101 years. During the rest of the week, they’ll be making homemade bread.

“We’re going to turn around with this jam that we’re making and we’re going to share it with others. Either our family members, community members, anyone within our organization, and just make that connection with our location — which is the founding location of the Good Samaritan,” Vangerud Leraas said.

My name is Anne Sara, better known as Sara.
I was born an only child in Port-au-prince, Haiti and moved to the U.S at the age of 2.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is where I was raised.
After graduating with my bachelor degree at Albright College, I moved to Florida to continue my studies.
WDAY is the reason why I moved to North Dakota.