FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Jennifer Clar, 760-1334

DATE: August 11, 2008

ST. JOHN'S HOME TO RELEASE MONARCH BUTTERFLIES

First of Senior Living Facilities to Participate in

Zoo's 2008 Butterfly Beltway Project

Mexico, here we come! On Monday, August 18^th at 2:00 p.m. in the Skalny Courtyard of St. John's Home, elders, staff and visitors will tag and release Monarch butterflies as part of the Seneca Park Zoo's Butterfly Beltway expansion project. St. John's Home has been a member facility for the project since 2002 and is the first of several senior living facilities in the area scheduled to release butterflies this season. With Ryan Loyson, Conservation Education Chair of the Seneca Park Zoo leading the way, participants will assist in the species' migration to Mexico and continue learning about this annual phenomenon. The Daisy Marquis Jones Foundation has awarded the zoo a grant to continue the butterfly cutivation.

As part of the Home's Eden Alternative journey, Explorer Scouts and elders planted a garden of butterfly-attracting plants in Skalny Courtyard in 2002. Since then, elders and staff have enhanced the garden to attract new butterfies. Says St. John's Therapeutic Recreation Specialist and Eden Associate, Mimi Bommelje, the release “connects our elders with the world-at-large.”

St. John’s Home and the Rochester Presbyterian Home are the only Eden Alternative providers in upstate New York. Specialty programs include Comfort Care, Rehabilitation, and Alzheimer's/dementia care, as well as long term care, serving a total of 475 residents. St. John's Home also provides services for people who continue to live in their own homes, including Day Break medical and social adult day service programs, and Traditions in Caring, a licensed home health care agency owned in part by St. John's. Affiliated with St. John's Home as part of St. John's Senior Communities are St. John's Meadows and St. John's Foundation.