The Bisque is Back

As Summer fades, kids go back to school and Fall is in the air, it is also time for the annual Lobster Bisque Fund-Raiser to help raise funds to support the Alzheimer's programs at Seniorsfirst.

For those who don't know the history, several years ago we purchased the building that formerly was the Dicken's Restaurant and was famous for its home-made lobster bisque. Today, our Assisted Living and Adult Day & Respite facility sit where the Dicken's once was. When we purchased the property, we also got the secret recipe to the bisque. Once a year, we sell the bisque at various drive-thru locations across the Rochester area and every year the folks come out to "get their bisque fix" and support the Seniorsfirst mission.

Here I am hawking a sale to a happy customer at our new site out at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Greece.

Additionally, we had teams out at Perinton Presbyterian Church on the East side, Gates Presbyterian Church on the West Side and of course our main distribution site at Valley Manor Apartments in the City.

The most fun (besides raising money for a good cause) is hearing all the great stories about people's memories of the bisque lunches at the old Dicken's restaurant. They also like to share their favorite bisque recipes and special occasion dinner events when they bring out the bisque.


We won't have a final count on sales until next week, but the early indication is that the weak economy had a definite impact on what was an otherwise perfect day for our event. Sales were down nearly 40% at all sites, but we still sold over 1600 cans of soup!

The good news is we will continue to sell the bisque on the web (www.seniorsfirstonline.com) on a mail-order basis until we sell out. They make great Christmas gifts and a perfect start to your next special dinner party. It's a great soup for a great cause!

In other news, the Strategic Planning and Executive Committees of the Board each held regular meetings recently. The primary agenda was a review of the progress and continuing plans related to our major initiatives at Kirkhaven and Valley Manor. Nothing new to report, other than our continued quest with all our projects and the boards full support and assistance.

We have held additional meetings and evaluations with respect to our search for a replacement physician group to serve our upcoming needs at Kirkhaven. We have made significant progress with this and expect to have a formal announcement soon. We have also been working with our new pharmacy on a plan of correction to improve performance related to the start-up and transition of this critical service. We are optimistic about their responsiveness to our concerns and desire to meet our expectations.

This week we have both our Valley Manor and Kirkhaven board meetings. I will share any pertinent information from those meetings in my next blog update.

I'll be walking in the ALS Walk this weekend in support of that worthwhile cause. Thank you so much to the many people who responded so positively to my previous blog posting (Bob's Story). Your support is greatly appreciated. I will continue to accept contributions payable to ALS in sponsorship of my walking until the end of the week.

Have a great week and thanks for visiting my blog. (p.s.- I think blogspot is in the pacific coast time zone and thus my often morning blog posts get recorded as 4 hours earlier. Didn't want you to think I was up that early blogging away.)