This morning Sylvia and I visited Lawrence M. Crosby (Larry), the General Manager of Thrifty Ice Cream located in El Monte, CA. The purpose of the visit was to take this picture of Larry and to show him a picture of the tile we have mounted on the donor wall expressing our gratitude to him and to everyone at Thrifty Ice Cream (you buy it at Rite Aid now) for their generosity. Don't you all agree that this is still the best ice cream you can eat?
Well, we have been getting ice cream from Thrifty's since I've worked in this department, going back thirteen years, so I asked Larry how long its really been. He doesn't know. It's just been a long, long time. How lucky are we? As many of you know, we rely on donations from our friends and neighbors in the Southern California Community to help us give the best possible treatment to everyone of our clients. And perks like ice cream, not considered a necessity, certainly enhance a client's treatment experience by (of course) increasing the enjoyment quotient of our mealtimes. Everyone loves ice cream - chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, cookies 'n cream, pistachio, chocolate mint...cold...melty...I think I've said more than I need to about how much ice cream means to all of us!
Anyway, Larry Crosby, we learned today, is a genuinely nice man. He is, like me, old school down to earth California born and bred. He is a "Valley Boy" from the San Fernando Valley, who started working at Thrifty's while he was still in school. It was after he graduated from Brigham Young University that he actually decided to make Thrifty's a career, so he is truly a man who went from scooping ice cream cones to being the General Manager of the company. He says it's been 36 years, possibly a little more. An American story. What I don't get is how he can be the GM of an ice cream company and be so slender. Doesn't compute.
There are some other nice people at Thrifty's that we have worked with over the years; Mercedes, Kathleen, Maria - all of them eager to help, all of them kind. We want to acknowledge them. We are grateful to our angels.
It takes so much help to do what we want to do here and we are very fortunate. It seems that when we put our needs "out there" we get the help we are looking for.
This month we were awarded two grants: The Patron Saints Foundation has given us a grant to purchase new tankless water heaters in several of our buildings and The Pasadena Community Foundation has given us a grant for a new stairway from the parking lot to the meeting room. Thank you everyone.
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