This month’s highlights:
400 words | 2 minute read time
Dear Torrington Elks Members,
What a busy holiday season we had at the Lodge with all the community holiday parties we hosted: Friendly Hands Festival of Trees, Park & Rec’s Christmas Village Fundraiser, DCF’s Dinner with Santa, and PAL’s Christmas Brunch. Then there were the members’ lounge events plus all the donations we were able to make in December! It was certainly a hectic but extremely rewarding month! The Holiday Giving spirit was alive and well at #372 with the Friendly Hands Giving tree, the $1000 donation to Christmas Village, $500 of goods to Susan B. Anthony Project, $1000 to ALS-CT, $2000 to Torrington Library, $1000 to PAL, plus eighteen winter coats were given to the Torrington Veterans Office along with gloves and scarves.
As I announced last month, our Elk of the Year is Jakob (Jake) Derwitsch, and our Officer of the Year is Trustee Rick Porter. Jake was a member of the House Committee and did a stellar job diving head-first into the role of Pond Chairman, going above and beyond to resurrect a pond committee and oversee the day to day operations as well as many improvement projects at the pond from May thru November, and you occasionally find him waitering at the Lodge.
Rick is a Trustee who also took a very active interest in our House Committee this year. Rick was instrumental in several major projects at our Lodge and Pond this year including the renovations of the Pub Kitchen, the Pond Kitchen, and the Waiter/Storage room. He’s also one of our volunteer bartenders for Football Sundays. Both Jake and Rick were key volunteers at our “Rock the Pond” fund raiser in September. We will celebrate them on Saturday, February 21. We hope you can attend to hear more of the good work these volunteers did this Elk year, and show them your appreciation for doing so much for our lodge and our membership during this Elk year! I always say that we have a very good village of support at our Lodge, and these two are shining examples.
Fraternally, Jean Weingart
