Golden Belles entertain with music

    HOULTON — Aroostook County RSVP, Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, participants continue to connect with their communities by volunteering their time, talent, skills, and experience in meaningful service to others.
    One fine example of this is entertaining thorough music. They call themselves “The Golden Belles,” who in reality are Mim Nichols, Polly Taylor, Sharon Fitzpatrick and Dottie Alward. They meet at Madigan Estates Nursing Home every Friday morning to perform their own special brand of music mischief.
    Nichols plays the spoons, bells, castanets, washboard, and on occasion a home made drum. She often uses antique limberjacks (like a wooden puppet) to keep time with the beat sometimes too.
Contributed photograph
ENTERTAIN — The “Golden Belles” entertain with the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). They are, from left, front, Mim Nichols and Polly Taylor; back, Dottie Alward and Sharon Fitzpatrick.
    Taylor is the lead singer and guitarist. Alward plays the tambourine and Fitzpatrick is known to give a resounding “Yahoo” in the appropriate spot and always has a joke or two for the crowd that gathers.
    To give residents some variety they occasionally invite a granddaughter and her children, sisters from Canada, a friend who is a juggler, or another musician to join them. They are known to dress up in holiday garb for the benefit of their audience, as the season dictates. Their interaction with their audience, whether it be at the nursing home, Ricker Plaza, senior citizen meeting, birthday party, craft fair, nursery school, recognition dinner, or talent show, reigns supreme and it is returned to them tenfold.
    Besides the time needed to prepare, practice, and the actual singing at Madigan Estates weekly, the women collectively volunteer about 90 hours of their time weekly to other interests and still feel like they should be doing more. They encourage others who have never volunteered to try it, saying you just need to be yourself, to just let it come from your heart and not to be afraid to try it— they admonish you to dare to come out of your comfort zone! These women receive and enjoy a multitude of tangible and intangible benefits from simply meeting other people’s needs. They are certainly aging successfully.
    The RSVP Southern Area coordinator, Linda Bartlett, is constantly on the look out for folks who wish to get involved in their communities by helping their neighbors. If you are interested please call: 757-8065 (home phone) or 540-7301 (cell phone).