Family members and residents of St. Patrick’s Home Rehabilitation and Health Care Center at 66 Van Cortlandt Pk., So., gathered to celebrate nine residents who can now call themselves centenarians.

Centenarians, those who are or over the age of 100, were honored at the Van Cortlandt Village home, with honorees all being women. Two of the honorees were aged 103.

So what’s the secret to a long life? One centenarian, who only went by Catherine M., told the Norwood News, “My secret to living so long was having faith.”

St. Patrick’s Home has been celebrating centennial birthdays for a decade. These events were inspired by a client who moved into the facility at 100 years of age. Since then, staffers wanted to celebrate the occasion with a birthday party held annually each June.

“It got bigger and bigger and bigger every year,” said Janet Kibassa, director of recreation and coordinator for the birthday celebration at St. Patrick’s Home.

Letters from President Barack Obama, Mayor Bill de Blasio, and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. were read and certificates of recognition were presented to each honoree.

“It’s wonderful to celebrate these residents. They have gone through so many experiences, said Kibassa.

The birthday celebration concluded with guests eating birthday cake and enjoying dance performances and tunes as far back as 1913 to coincide with the years some of the centenarians were born.

St. Patrick’s Home opened in 1931 by the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm under the leadership of Venerable Mary Angeline Teresa McCrory.

In the Bronx where the median age is 33 and the percentage of being 85 or older is a dismal 1.5 percent, approximately 21,000 people, it is quite an accomplishment to be considered a centenarian.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.