Home Place co-founder Anne Grimes blows a ram’s horn, or shofar, before Bible study at the Home Place of Ayden.
Some place like home Former businesswomen open gathering place for senior adults
By Kim Grizzard
W
ith its inviting front porch and cheery yellow door, the Homeplace of Ayden is definitely quite homey. The inside is just as welcoming, with a charming kitchen, cozy fireplace and comfortable sofas. So it is really no wonder that people sometimes call and ask if there are any beds available. It’s an honest mistake from those who have glanced at the cover of the brochure to assume that this is a retirement home. But the 1,800-square-foot ranch on Emma Cannon Road has almost everything except beds. That’s because Homeplace
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isn’t where people come when they need a place to live. It’s a place they come when they want to have a life. “When people come in, they feel a sense of happiness in here and they feel a sense of belonging,” co-founder Pam Eldridge said. “They feel the spirit of the Lord in here. That’s what we mostly get from everybody is that they really feel that the spirit is in here, which is what we’re looking for. “We want people to feel that way,” she said. “We want them to feel that this is their second home.”
HOW IT BEGAN Eldridge’s refurbished farmhouse is right next door
to Homeplace, and co-founder Anne Grimes lives just down the road. Grimes is better known for launching Harvest Time Foods as a family business in 1981, but the idea of starting a nonprofit is one that she had cooked up decades before now. Grimes and her husband, Bryan, used to talk about being involved in a ministry after they retired.
them together.
“When he died, I just thought it was down the drain,” Grimes, 78, said. “What could I do by myself?”
As she prayed about the need, Eldridge said she felt led to contact Grimes, but she was reluctant to do so. She sent a text that she half hoped would be ignored, but Grimes proposed a meeting later the same day.
Three years ago, Eldridge came into the picture. Back then, she knew Grimes as the name behind Anne’s Flat Dumplings. But in December 2017, some mistletoe brought
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Eldridge had volunteered to sell pieces of the plant as a fundraiser for the nonprofit organization Daughters of Worth, and Grimes bought bags of it. Still, the two wouldn’t meet face to face until months later when Eldridge was working on another fundraising effort.
WHY SO SOON? “I wanted to get her out of
AYDEN MAGAZINE
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