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Show LiTf Jxi Thursday, December 20, 2007 NORTH COUNTY NEWSPAPERS Page 15 HOLIDAY CHEER it f -ut M &t: IP j- ..(. 'S, . ". " i ' " i. : r I; -A f o I) CRAIQ DILGER Daily Herald Sherri James sings to the residents at the Trinity Mission Care and Rehab Center in Provo on Dec. 11, 2007. Trinity Mission Care Center celebrates Christmas with show Craig Dilger DAILY HERALD he dining hall at the Trinity Trin-ity Mission Care and Rehab Center Cen-ter in Provo is a large open room with a small stage and a big screen television up at the front. The tables are spread widely apart to provide ample room for the wheelchairs and walkers. On most days the television is blasting reruns of The Adams Family or the latest episode of a soap opera. Once a month the curtains are drawn in front of the TV and the stage is cleared as . Sherri James takes the stage. Every last gap between the front rows of tables is filled with patients in wheelchairs or armchairs relocated from the lounge. Someone in the third row of the anxious crowd yelled out a request for Johnny Cash. Sherri Sher-ri then shuffled a couple of CDs around, hit play, and started belting out a twangy version of Ring of Fire. The crowd went as wild as is humanly possible without standing up. "There is a lot of eye contact when I perform and it creates cre-ates this exchange so that ityis almost like I am performing with the audience instead of at them," says James. "I get a fulfillment from the people that goes beyond words. Just to see them smile, knowing that life can be so tough for them. Making Mak-ing their lives just a little bit brighter makes my whole day worthwhile." Sherri's first performance was done at the request of her sister who ended up in a care facility in 2001. She wanted Sherri to come and sing to the residents there. After that it was just word-of -mouth. Eventually, she had so many requests that she decided to quit her day job and perform full time. "I look back oft that first ' show and remember how I was scared to death," says James. "I was not breathing. It is a wonder that I didn't have to do the entire singing and breathing into a brown paper bag." Normally, at least 40 residents resi-dents out of the 60 or 70 at Trinity Mission come to Sherri's concerts. Many of those who do not attend are physically incapable of leaving their rooms to come to the performance. per-formance. "She tries extremely hard to remember the residents' names and she goes to many care centers, I am guessing she goes to at least 20 buildings build-ings on a regular basis," says Heather Lindsay, the activities coordinator at Trinity Mission. Mis-sion. "She even writes down songs that they request and then she'll dedicate that song to them the next time and remembers their name so she makes it personal even though she has so many people to visit." Sherri says that at least 98 percent of her clientele consists of care facilities and senior centers. She does not make a lot of money and tries to be accommodating to her clients' needs. "She keeps her prices extremely ex-tremely reasonable because she knows that our budgets are so low," says Heather Lindsay. "Last year she had to raise her price by five dollars dol-lars and she asked us all if that was OK, she was really worried about it. And it was actually an extremely reason able price compared to the other people that we have had come." Even though Sherri is not going get rich singing at care facilities and senior centers, to her the job is its own reward. "A lot of the facilities I play are on a monthly basis, ba-sis, and not a week goes by when someone doesn't look up at me and say please don't stop," says James. "So I know that I'm doing what I am supposed to be doing right now. I laugh with my audience and I cry with them. It has created a really special bond." Special Offer: November 1, 2007.-January St' 2008 . 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