photo by Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph Country Place Senior Living resident Huleen Walters, 92, activity director Judy Clements, resident Louise Carter, 91, and resident Ilene Brown, 89, decorate wheel covers for their assisted living center's float Thursday Dec. 4, 2014 that will be featured in the Canton Lighted Christmas Parade in Canton, Texas. The two residents are part of a group of women who meet regularly to participate in arts and crafts projects.

CANTON — Retired teacher Ilene Brown, 89, swirled glue on a circular red piece of cardboard and doused it in holiday glitter last week. In her retirement years, the former teacher has taken to crafts. With her friends at the Country Place Senior Living of Canton assisted living facility, the residents glitzed and dazzled the cardboard to cover the wheels for the facility’s Christmas float.

“It’s a big job to be Santa’s helpers,” Mrs. Brown joked.

The three ladies laughed and joked back and forth, but kept focus on the task at hand. The cap covers were a small piece of an ornate float that will stroll down the streets of Canton on Saturday with a functioning 8-foot tall snow globe surrounded by park benches, said Kathy Hays, the facility’s director.

During the week, the senior residents will paint, assemble and wire the float.

The Christmas spirit is serious business at the facility. Residents are hoping to be the showstopper in the parade and take home the grand prize — to give it back to those in need.

“This is fun, but we will definitely win,” Ms. Hays said. “The plan is, if we win the $300 (prize), we will give it to an organization in town that is getting food for needy families that don’t have food for Christmas.”

Generosity is a common trait at the facility.

Residents will soon busy themselves in the kitchen baking cookies and making thank you baskets for local emergency personnel. After all, nothing says appreciation quite like homemade peanut brittle and peanut patties.

“I think it’s important that we stay active,” Mrs. Brown said. “Most of all, we are nearing heaven and we need to always remember to pray and to be close to the Lord because all of us here are here because we need help. We have health problems. It’s a wonderful place, and they care for us, but we are all nearing heaven.”

Their deeds are not limited to Christmastime. The ladies at country place make baby blankets for abused and neglected children all year.

“We are always doing something — early to late — and after I go into my room at night, I do crochet and embroidery work for community service,” 92-year-old Huleen Walters said. “It keeps us busy all the time. Sometimes I don’t even have time to call my husband and my daughter.

The residents said keeping busy and focusing on others has had a positive effect on their lives.

Mrs. Brown said she was in very poor health when she came to the facility after it opened in the summer, but the positive environment and staff helped her get better.

“When I came here I couldn’t walk, and now I’m walking (with) a walker,” she said. “It’s a wonderful place. We pray a lot, we sing a lot, make crafts and have good food … everything really that anyone could want. I feel so highly blessed to be here.”