Following the opening of the meeting on Thursday, October 6th by President, Janet Johnson, another new member was introduced to the membership: Mary Covarrubias, who is no stranger to this area as she has been the Secretary for the Elementary School for a number of years. Welcome to retirement, Mary, but don’t get too comfortable!

And then an extremely productive meeting occurred. First, a huge acknowledgment and thank you to Ginny Lichac for the design, construction and placing of signs for our upcoming Garage Sale. The signs are being seen throughout the area and will inform all residents of this important money raising affair.

And, next, Lydia Strakos, Chairman of the biannual garage sales, announced that the Fall Sale would occur on Saturday, October 15th. The Sale will be held in the Pavilion at the Community Center with an opening time of 8:00 a.m. that morning. Arrangements for transportation of the stored items have been made by Lydia, which will take place late on Thursday afternoon. Work days for sorting and emptying the boxes of items should begin that afternoon and will continue on Friday in preparation for the 8:00 a.m. opening of the Sale on Saturday morning. And members were all alerted to select the items they intend to prepare for the Bake Sale as they will be contacted by Chairman, Sally Ragusin.

The biannual Garage Sale and accompanying Bake Sale are one of our major money-making projects that are used to fund annual scholarships for our local high school graduates and donations to many causes as well as the annual Christmas Luncheon to acknowledge our Senior residents. Therefore, each member has been contacted to not only prepare their special items for the Bake Sale but to be up at the Community Center on Friday and Saturday to help set up.

Information from Marie Hawes was placed before the membership concerning the possibility of HEB building a small pantry store in our area. Ms. Hawes stated that interested residents should contact HEB via their customer service number: 1-800-432-3113. This number is also available on the web site of HEB, which can be seen by entering heb.com on Google or Yahoo. By a telecon with the Customer Service Department of HEB in San Antonio, it will convey to that office an interest of the residents. This will not guarantee the building of a Pantry store, but it will possibly show a need of one in Port O’Connor and the surrounding area.

The next meeting of the Service Club will be Thursday, October 20th at 10:00 a.m. in the Community Center. Items on the Agenda will be the annual Christmas Luncheon with information concerning decorations and the menu items for the Luncheon and review of the successfully completed Garage and Bake Sale.