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Today, Rob hosted a regular meeting at Cafe Spiga, joined by 10 other club members. Our visiting speaker was Carol Carter, representing The Sunshine Prevention Center in Port Jeff Station. Among Rob's announcements: Reminder: Our Golf Classic (Putt & Pub Crawl) will take place in the Village THIS Saturday, April 9, 2022. All members have been expected to contribute by getting a foursome to join up or by having a business or individual sponsor our event AND by obtaining gift baskets (from businesses or associates) or items for our Gift Basket Raffles (of $100 value). Additional Donations can still be dropped off at Erika Jurasits'office, but you must call first. Thank you to the Marder Family, who completed the gift basket wrapping on their own! (All the goods have since been moved to Erika's office.) Mike Burghardt announced that tomorrow's Membership Committee Meeting will be rescheduled, since quite a few members will be unable to meet tomorrow. Mike will soon send an email with the new meeting date. (All club members are welcome to attend.) Regarding our attendance policy: changes are afoot. The Committee members feel that if members pay their dues in July, they must be prepared to attend meetings or scheduled events/activities. ***Rebecca is calling for 6 Golf Outing Hole Volunteers. It's easy and it's fun. Any prospective adult helpers (friends, relatives, etc.) are wanted/needed for our upcoming fundraiser THIS SATURDAY. Contact Rebecca a.s.a.p., please. She also noted that the Port Jeff Brewery will be again sponsoring a 15 K run through the Village soon, with resulting donations being bestowed on a local cause. Her suggestion: perhaps our club can be considered a future fundraising recipient. Deb praised our "gorgeous" April newsletter, "Harbor Light", and reminds us that next Tuesday is an OPEN CUPBOARD COLLECTION DAY. Cindy reminded us that PJHS will be selecting its Senior Scholarship recipient soon. In addition: RYLA Spring Weekend takes place this weekend. You're invited to join her on Sunday at this event. Furthermore, she invites all to attend the always enjoyable Annual Antiques and Garden Weekend at the Village Center, April 30th and May 1st, 10 AM to 5 PM each day. Jen has been working on getting us a workable date for our Annual Spring Clean-Up at Camp Pa-Qua-Tuck. While April 30th and May 1st apparently won't work for many of us, and May 7th may be possible, she will probably request an early June date. As soon as she has a date, Jen will let us know. Our Habitat for Humanity Build is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, May 10th, from 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM. Rob says that this activity will count as a club meeting for that week. It is expected that members will make every effort to participate for at least an hour. Location to be Determined. Contact John Perkins at John.Perkins@chsli.org to register (or at any general membership meeting). Jen invites your family to attend the (Free) Easter Egg Hunt on 4/16 at the Train Car Park. Sign up at pjst.com. Also coming up: The Earth Day & Arbor Day Celebration at the Train Car Park, 9AM- 1PM, April 23rd. Sponsored by the Terryville/PJ Station Chamber, the events will include paper shredding opportunities, receipt of tree saplings to the 1st-arriving participants, the Daffodil Dash- virtually, or the 5K Fun Run, etc. Contact Jen for more info. Deb reminds us to vote on our Public Library Budgets today. Rebecca announced the need for 80-100 volunteers, ages 15 and older, to help out at the Annual LI Explorium Maker Fair (in the Village) on Saturday, June 11th. Contact her for more info. Rob introduced us to our visiting speaker, Carol Carter, who founded Sunshine Prevention over 30 years ago, following a period of turmoil in her own personal history. Sunshine Prevention, a non-profit agency, sponsors a youth and family support and education center located on Boyle Rd. in Port Jeff Station. This 501c3 began in a basement of a local church in Brookhaven hamlet, offering help mostly to youth adversely affected by family divorce/separation issues, drug and alcohol problems, anger management, and other such family problems that were not being dealt with/resolved in schools or via other agencies. Carol borrowed ideas and creative strategies for her organization from the Longwood School District, where she learned to initially work with youngsters using puppets to act out situations and ways of handling them. Since that time, the Town of Brookhaven donated an old building for $1, provided that her agency, along with business, and community volunteers, work on it/fix it up for proper use. The facility on Boyle Rd. is now a rather viable one that is sponsored by Town and County- and the $1 lease has recently been renewed for many more years of building use. It is here that people of all ages work together, trying to build Drug Free and Violence Free communities on LI. This center offers hope and inspiration to families through support and education- also teaching social skills, leadership, and alternative education to our at-risk neighbors. The center's primary mission is to empower youth to make good choices. Youth are taught, among other things, how to deal with bullying and teasing. The Center tries to reach children before any form of risky behaviors occur. Support is also given to special needs youngsters, ie., those on the autism spectrum. The Center provides a Blessing Box filled always with food that is donated and then used by those in need- as well as a food pantry. There is now a summer camp teaching and building coping skills. A variety of programs are offered for people of different ages. There is also a functioning Alternative School that currently works with 10 students in grades 10-12. Volunteers are welcomed and trained to help out. This agency needs to further publicize what they do. They have begun to hold fundraisers in order to expand programs. Carol wanted us to know that our club donation today will go towards the growing summer program. She invites our members to visit the school/center during the day, and Rob has suggested that we help perform a clean-up at the site sometime in the future.  Sergeant Kim posed many clever questions in honor of National Library Week and National Library Worker Day (ie., Which dictator worked as an Ass't. Librarian? - Answer: Chairman Mao, while a student at Peking University; and Which famous lover worked as a Librarian?- Answer: Casanova). Kim also collected many Happy Dollars and a few Sad Dollars, too. |
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