Fall Mega Garage and Bake Sale: Thank you all who turned out for our Fall Mega Garage Sale and Bake Sale. It was a huge success with record attendance! We appreciate you, and could not do all the good that we do without you!

Add-On Awards for 4H Students: The Club awarded add-ons to the 12 POC students for their 2023 Calhoun County Fair Animal Projects. Congratulations to all of these students – we are proud of all of you!

Incentive Awards: For their hard work for the current grading period, the Club presented incentive awards to the 63 Port O’Connor students. Keep up the good work, everyone!

Memorials: In memory of Donny Haynes and Grace Stone, the Club made donations to the POC Cemetery Association.

Farmers Market: Our next Farmers Market will be on Saturday, November 9, from 8:00 a.m. until 12 noon. We will have delicious baked goods, potted plants, hand crafted items, Service Club Cookbooks, and “POC – End of the Road” License Plate Covers and more! Please stop by and check us out!

Service Club Meetings: Club meetings are the first and third Thursdays of the month, with the next ones being November7 and November 21 at 10:00 a.m. at the POC Community Center. Please come join us. All ladies are welcome.

Medical Equipment For Loan: The Club has a variety of medical equipment (walkers, wheelchairs, shower chairs, crutches, orthopedic boots, knee scooters, etc.) which we loan free of charge to POC citizens who are in need. For information, please contact one of the ladies listed below.

Spring Mega Garage Sale: Our next Garage Sale will be on April 5, 2025, and we appreciate your generous donations, as always! For your convenience, we have a “Drop Box” in front of our Service Club Donation Center. For questions or to donate, please call one of the ladies listed below.
Alane Haardt 281-416-6028
Nancy Ladshaw 830-832-0510
Marie Hawes 361-920-2322
Nan Burnett 832-276-5948

With cooler temperatures and fall planting season on the horizon, many are planning the contents of their garden beds. The annual meeting was held on September 24th at the garden site. During the meeting, officers were elected, board members approved the 2024-2025 budget, and site rules reviewed. Dues for the upcoming year were also collected: $20 for club membership (required if you have a plot) and $80 for the plot itself. Please remember to make checks and donations payable to POC Community Garden Club. Membership is open all year.

The Officers and Board of Directors for the upcoming year are President: Val Tiemann; Vice President of Fundraising: Laurane Debowski; Vice President of Membership: Donna Trubee; Secretary: Nancy Ladshaw, and Treasurer: Melanie Martinez.

Board of Directors are Terry Twomey; Rhonda Walsh; Rebecca Allen; Alice Reed; Norman Trubee; Tiffany Mohr; Daphne Powers; Terri McGuire, and Cindy Hanson.

Terri McGuire provided a brief presentation on fall planting to help gardeners get organized and was available to answer any gardening questions. Any time a meeting is held, do not forget to bring a lawn chair for your comfort. We have a lovely canopy but no seating arrangements.

In preparation for the meeting, we kindly asked gardeners to tidy up their garden beds and the surrounding areas in advance. Every bit of effort helps in maintaining the garden’s appearance.

Special thanks to Jeff Dixon for mowing and trimming around the garden perimeter. We are also working on getting the rest of the site shredded. If anyone knows a volunteer with equipment to help with this, it would be greatly appreciated.

The Republican Party is known for its conservative values in keeping with our U.S. Constitution. Speakers at the recent Republican dinner on October 5th gave validity to this truth as they shared their thoughts with a large audience at the Bauer Community Center. Candidates running for the 13th Court of Appeals District spoke of their adherence to the Constitution in decisions they would hand down to the court. For those that love our Constitution it was music to their ears! The candidates running include Jaime Tijerina, Jenny Cron, Ysmael Fonseca, and Jon West.

L.J. Francis, who serves on our State Board of Education, spoke of the battle to keep pornographic books out of our school libraries.

Other speakers included our U.S. Texas Representative Michael Cloud, our Texas Representative J.M. Lozano, and Don Huffines from the Liberty Foundation. These speakers shared a common message including the need for a secure border, constitutional governance, and holding elected officials accountable to Republican values.

Attendees included members of our Calhoun Commissioner’s Court, elected officials and current local candidates as well as members of the local Republican Party and a number of surrounding counties..

The dinner was a success. The food was catered by Josie’s of Port O’Connor. A big shout out! to all that worked so hard in planning this huge event! –Tanya DeForest