CRESTVIEW— A local assisted living home’s residents needn’t worry about bathtubs and toilets.
Mike Duffer, president and owner of Nashville-based Safe Step Walk-In Tub Co., surprised Crestview Manor’s 60 residents Friday with two free walk-in tubs and the promise of 3,000 toilet paper rolls a year.
The tubs were to be installed Saturday, and the toilet paper will keep rolling as long as Safe Step and Crestview Manor remain in business, Duffer said.
He became aware of the low-income residents’ needs with an email from Shirley Perring, who with coworkers at the Jackson Hewitt tax office supports Crestview Manor as a community service project.
Their involvement began around Easter when they offered to help Emerald Coast Hospice deliver “Baskets of Blessings” to the residents.
Later, while home recuperating from back surgery, Perring contacted tub and toilet paper manufacturers.
“The tub is dangerous and looks like something out of ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ ” Perring wrote in an email, referring to the film about patients in a decrepit mental hospital.
“I wrote an email and the rest is history,” she said. “Never in a million years did I think I would get it.”
Safe Step Cares, the company’s nationwide philanthropy program, has received hundreds of requests for donations, said Derek Farley, president of Safe Step’s public relations agency.
“The tub request we’re used to,” he said in an email. “The toilet paper request took us by surprise for very good reason: We don’t make toilet paper.”
Safe Step wouldn’t offer a value on the donated tubs, but the units and custom installation reportedly range from $10,000 and $15,000.
The toilet paper is estimated to cost Safe Step about $1,500 a year, Farley said.
“We’re a very blessed company, and it’s a pleasure and a privilege to be able to make these life-changing donations,” Duffer said. “We are thrilled to bring comfort, independence, safety and convenience to Crestview Manor.”
“This is truly a miracle donation,” said Becky Brice-Nash, director of Crestview Manor. “It was a donation of a lifetime for some very special people and beyond our wildest dreams.”
Crestview News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes can be reached at 850-682-6524 or brianh@crestviewbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian.
