Seniors moment: Baring it for a charity calendar

Grandpa and Granny are stripping again for charity.

Residents of Pleasant Pointe Assisted Living facility in Barberton, Ohio, recently posed baring (almost) all for their 2016 calendar. Last year, they did the same thing and generated nearly $9,000 for the Esther Ryan Shoe Fund, which provides shoes for children who attend local schools.

But not everyone was happy about it. One woman wrote to the editorial pages maintaining that surely the residents didn't have mental clarity when they volunteered to wrap up in towels or strip down to shorts and pose for photos that made them appear au naturel.

Wilma Purvis, 95, wasn't pleased that someone would suggest that she and her pals weren't sharp enough to make the decision for themselves.

"I wrote a letter [to the editor] to tell that woman to clean up her brain," said Purvis. "And I told her to open her purse and buy a calendar to help somebody."

Ryan started the shoe fund while working as a school nurse, doing health screenings, giving immunizations, reporting child abuse and detecting pregnancies. She witnessed children who came to school wearing their mother's shoes because they had none of their own.

"It's for such a good cause," offered Anne Moore, 92. "And it's a lot of fun."

When the story of the 2015 calendar went viral, wire services, the Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report and the Huffington Post took notice. The models were interviewed on television and autographed calendars.

During a visit to a restaurant, someone told Purvis, who was in this year's calendar with her late sister, Norma Elfrink, that he recognized her.

"How do you know me?" asked 2016's Miss March.

"I saw you in a calendar."

Teresa Morris, a licensed nursing home administrator, whose grandmother, Olive Allenbaugh, started the assisted living center in the early 1940s, said she had no idea the calendars were going to be so popular.

The residents, including Morris' mother, Lucy Eileen Morris, came up with the idea — inhibitions be darned.