A community-minded, former teacher will celebrate her 100th birthday today at Sandys Secondary Middle School.

Elsie Gertrude Bascome, who is happiest when she is surrounded by family and friends, will be celebrating her birthday but also giving back to the community.

Instead of receiving gifts Mrs. Bascome has asked that party-goers donate to the Sandys Beyond 2000 Community Sports Complex.

"My mother really would appreciate these donations and I know this is what she would want. She was always a very community-minded person and this is also a tribute to education, which she was very involved in," said her daughter Barbara Clemons.

"Every year the family tries to coordinate her birthday so that it entails something that she has contributed to in her life. Years past it's been for the church or education. This year it was her son Richard who came up with the idea of celebrating community and education."

The school project will include a 25-metre swimming pool, a fitness centre with weight room, aerobic suite and a regulation-size gymnasium.

"We want the facility to be the venue for programmes that encourage community involvement in our children's educational development as well as health-oriented programmes for the general public," said Walter Roberts a director of the Sandys Secondary School Foundation, which is overseeing the project.

Sandys Secondary School principal Melvyn Bassett was grateful for Mrs. Bascome's generous gift, pointing out that she was his first teacher.

"The values she instilled have helped guide me throughout my own teaching career," he said.

Having worked as a teacher for 39 years, Mrs. Bascome was continually enthusiastic about teaching whether it be in school or during her Sunday school classes.

"My mother was very dramatic and her classes were always very vibrant. She really cared about all those kids, they were like her family, but she never forgot about her own family," said Ms Clemons.

When asked about her mothers long life Ms Clemons recalled the farm her mother helped to manage with her husband, who died when he was 93.

"My mother took care of everything and it was all home-made. She baked bread every week and served dinner almost every night to the boys who worked on the farm," said Ms Clemons

Jill Bascome reiterated that her grandmother's "old-fashioned" lifestyle helped her live a long life.

"She grew up the old-fashioned Bermuda way on a farm where you had to make everything yourself, the type of Bermuda that's forgotten nowadays, I think that's what made her live so long."

Ms Clemons said: "She always looked after her body she ate well and even when she moved here to the Packwood home she swam all the time. She was a superwoman, I don't know how she did it."

Mrs. Bascome will celebrate with her family and friends today and the community and all Sandys Secondary School and Southampton Glebe School students and alumni are encouraged to join in the festivities between 5 p.m. and 7p.m.