Community

If you missed the VFW Market Days in Aransas Pass over the weekend, you’ll get another chance to browse the many vendors tables September 3-4, which will include a huge yard sale. Andrea Luker (left) shows off a container of her grandmother’s recipe for ‘Velveeta fudge’. The Colorado native said she grew up on the tasty treat, and if you’re not sure you’ll like it she offers free samples. Friend Monica Prado had wares to offer, too. Both lady’s husbands are Sergeants with the Aransas Pass Police. Elva Ramirez, also of Aransas Pass had a table inside the VFW Post 2932 at 620 W. Wheeler Ave. selling her ’Elva’s Baked Goods’, including these miniature pineapple upside-down cakes. Two incoming Aransas Pass High School freshmen, 13-year-old Katelyn Hagaman (left) and 14-year-old Kristan Gifford (right) were giving away free bee feeder kits, part of a community service project to qualify for a Silver Award as Cadets with Girl Scout Troop 9823 representing Aransas Pass and Ingleside. The kits included a bowl, a bag of stones and instructions for filling the base with sugar water to help attract bees the girls explained have been endangered in Texas after so many were killed in the February 2021 freeze.

An Austin-based Realtor representing the current owners of the former Care Regional Medical Center at 1711 W. Wheeler Ave. in Aransas Pass shared with The Progress a buyer may be in the works for the long-shuttered hospital, closed after Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. The 60,445 square foot facility was built in 1981. While zoned ‘General Business’ there’s no confirmation another medical canter would locate here, though residents and First Responders would welcome one. Since CRMC closed most patients requiring emergency or long-term care must travel across the Harbor Bridge to Corpus Christi. Anyone who travels that way knows how easily the highway or bridge may close due to certain weather conditions, construction or worse, an accident. Practice Real Estate Group has marketed the property as a ‘one-of-a-kind healthcare anchor opportunity’, with ‘no competition’ anywhere nearby. Originally designed to feature a labor/delivery rooms and nursery for birthing, an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), X-Ray and Emergency Room a ‘redesign’ option offered prospective buyers includes psychiatric treatment bed space or a ‘resident memory care area’, suggesting a long-term facility – like a nursing home – could be under consideration.

Paula Vandagriff (left) uses a rake to clean out leaves and muck along the curb in front of the historic Rialto Theatre on Commercial St. in downtown Aransas Pass Sunday, June 5th. She is a co-founder of Clean Green Aransas Pass along with Cindy Oakerson (right), joined by volunteer Connie Lewis and others who broke a good sweat over the weekend doing what few may notice – sprucing up the city’s mercantile district just days before the start of Shrimporee. Volunteers and donations are gladly welcomed. You can learn more by checking out the group’s page on Facebook.