A true community choir sings with joy

By Arline A. Fleming

NARRAGANSETT, RI – Joyful and triumphant, they come to sing.

College kids, community residents, clients of the Adeline
LaPlante Center in Wakefield, they come together in harmony, like a
shining star on a dark South County night.

For almost 30 Decembers, the blended singers have brought
tidings of comfort and joy to their families, their neighbors and
themselves, singing traditional holiday music unadorned and without
pretension, and they will do so again on Friday at 7 p.m. when the
LaPlante Center Christmas Concert fills St. Peter’s by-the-Sea
Church at 72 Central St. with song and possibility.

“I feel very special and warm inside when I sing,” said LaPlante
Center client Joyce Kasheneck, 58, brave enough to offer a solo of
“O Holy Night,” reaching notes higher than the venerable church
steeple.

In a Monday rehearsal, her friends slap her hand with high
fives, shouting out praise. She blushes a red deeper than her Santa
cap.

“It gives the clients a chance to shine,” said Joni Lonczak,
recreation director at the center and a longtime coordinator of
this event. “They get an extremely positive response and it makes
them feel good about themselves. It works well both ways,
actually.”