After many years at Parkside, Rick Champoise is retiring from the Art Gallery.
Champoise had been volunteering at Parkside for over a decade, as well as other places in the community such as the now closed Soup Kitchen where he was known as the Sauté King. About a dozen or so members of the Parkside staff and volunteers held a goodbye party for him this week.
“I enjoyed it,” he says. “The whole crew was there I would say.”
They got some going away presents for Champoise as well.
“I liked that. I really did,” he says. “I got a cloth that goes on a table … and it was knitted and then I got a pen.”
He also took some goodies home, he says and they had tea and cake.
Champoise had been saying he would retire when he turned 65 which he did on March 7.
Champoise said the Parkside crew members had some really nice things to say. They were really going to miss him at Parkside, his hard work and his smile. Champoise was there two days a week Tuesday and Wednesday at first before moving to Wednesday and Thursday.
“It was really a joy [when] I was working there.”
He promised he’s going to drop in there as much as he can, he says. Champoise says over his time there he washed the windows, vacuumed and did the big room, the kitchen and the bathroom. In the summertime, he also helped plant plants outside, put tables out and put the garbage out, he ads.
Champoise says he bought a painting from there as well.
“It was staring at me and liked it a lot so I bought it.”
Champoise says he would like to go back to go to one of the shows but is also willing to return for another reason. “If they make a mess, I am willing to clean it up.”