Letter to the Editor: HKYFS Needs Volunteers!

I would like to take this time to ask that you consider volunteering with YFS in some capacity. We do need some more Board members. We also can use help on different projects or events. For instance, we have just trained a group of mentors to connect with some younger school age children. We need some folks skilled in Strategic Planning to help us out. People who are interested in fund raising and planning events are needed for a committee. You may have a skill that you’d like to offer, to help out. Please call the agency at (860) 345-7498 to leave a message for me, Carol Dupuis, or Laurie Ruderfer, our Director.

This has been a very busy time for YFS. As Board Chairwoman, I want to thank Pizzeria Da Vinci of Higganum and Killingworth for allowing us to participate with them to provide delivery service.  That was back in September. We had teams of drivers at each site. Deliveries were offered by the person taking phone orders, for a fee to support YFS. Many folks took advantage and also tipped our teams. It was an enjoyable and successful fundraiser. We truly appreciate all the folks who took advantage of our delivery service. Those who participated are anxious to do it again!

In October, we had our semiannual Drug Take Back event. Killingworth Family Pharmacy and Nutmeg Pharmacy in Higganum were kind enough to allow us to use some of their space to conduct the event. Normally, we do one site in the fall and the other in the spring. Since we missed our spring collection this year, we covered both towns. It was an incredible success, as usual. We took in an amazing amount of medication. This resulted in people not flushing these into our water systems; damaging wildlife and polluting the water. Also, very importantly, these medications have been removed from homes where they can misused by people trying to find the latest “high”, mistakenly taken by the elderly, or someone not paying attention to the bottle they are reaching for, and away from any toddlers who may be exploring and get into them. I’m proud that people trust our event and hold onto things until we have the collection. However, there are also safe ways you can dispose of meds in between. Several area police departments have collection boxes available, as does State Police Troop F down in Westbrook. The medications we collected were taken by our Resident State Troopers, Mike Stanger of Haddam and Rich Mulhall, Killingworth. Both stood by at their collection site for the four hours and then took the meds directly to the DEA incinerator.

The day after the Drug Take Back, was our very different PUMPKIN RUN, 27th annual. We were fortunate to have a live event. So many had to go virtual. Many runners came from other towns to help make it successful. I wish we had more local people run. We over complied with all the Health Dept. and Governor’s regulations and it went off so well! Folks who ran seemed very happy being able to run “live” and with the way it was set up. It is our biggest fundraiser of the year and thanks to the amazing support of sponsors and donors, it looks like we will have a successful outcome after all the expenses. Sponsors and donors will be recognized in another release.

Watch for upcoming activities such as Stuff-A-Cruiser and Giving Tuesday. I don’t need to tell you that we are going to have even more families in need this year. We want to be ready to help with gift cards for food, fuel for heating homes, gas for cars, holiday gifts for children, etc. Please call the office if you are willing to help out in some way.

Please continue to stay safe and well during these difficult times. My sincere thanks for our very generous communities!