NEWSLETTER January 2026

Happy New Year everyone! My goodness…the first quarter of a century

of the new millennium has already gone by and seemingly in a blink of an

eye! Time marches on and in double-time I think!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends

and are looking forward to happiness and good health in the months to

come. Looking back on this last year, I don’t think there are many who

didn’t experience the loss of someone dear to them or didn’t

experience the challenges of getting older. Expectations were high at

the start of 2025 as I think that many of us hope for the best and like

the English, strive to keep calm and carry on. A positive attitude can be

beneficial to our well being but, man…some days that is hard to achieve

on a consistent basis. Nevertheless, keep looking forward, never

surrender to despair and keep on keeping on!

The Friends will continue to have food events about twice a month in

the coming year. Bingo fund raisers will be changing after March from

once every other month to every month. We hope to purchase all new

chairs for the dining room and classrooms this year. We are working

with the city to make that happen. We welcome your input for luncheon

ideas and will try to make them happen.

We are exploring the idea of starting a patronage program for the

Friends. We are a membership/donation dependent organization and

unfortunately both are continuing to decline. Becoming a patron would

be an obligation to donate a certain amount of funds to the Friends on

a yearly basis. We are still in the weeds on most of the details at this

point but hope to have something more concrete soon. Remember, we

are a non-profit all-volunteer organization and monies given are tax

deductible! So be on the lookout for details in the near future!

Karen O.