Williamstown's Friendship Club Raises Funds for Outings
 Shirley St. Pierre has been making afghans for the sale table to help support the Friendship Club's day trips. |
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Friendship Club of Williamstown is back on the road.
Members of the Friendship Club rode to Dalton on Aug. 12 to visit Berkshire Carousel on their first bus outing in more than five years.
"Bus trips were a thing of the past. It got too expensive," said Maggie Guiden, president of the club, which operates from the Harper Center.
But this year Guiden, a spirited 89-year-old, spurred club members on to raise money to cover the cost of a bus trip.
She put the idea to her fellow senior citizens in her usual forthright manner, "If you want to take a bus trip, we all have to work together."
To achieve their goal, members handcrafted items to sell at the Harper Center.
"Brian Grady (executive director of the Williamstown Council on Aging) lets us use a large table to display what we made. Everything was brand new. No tag sale stuff," said Guiden in an interview in her home in Proprietors Field.
"We bought small and big teddy bears at the dollar store and dressed them in sweaters and hats we made. They went like hot cakes."
Also offered were handmade throw pillows, quilts and baby afghans. Those who couldn't make things contributed money.
"We used that to buy batting for the quilts," said Guiden. "All other material was donated (by non-members). People are very generous. A woman in Cape Cod sends us material on a regular basis."
An assortment of novelty items made by members included decorative covers for tissue boxes, holders for scissors, bracelets and rabbit pins for Easter. Home-baked muffins and cake were quickly scooped up.
There are presently 35 members in the Friendship Club and Guiden would like to see an increase in membership.
"New people bring new ideas," she said.
Club members must be age 62 or older, annual dues are $10 and meetings are the second Tuesday of every month.
Meetings include birthday celebrations, refreshments and socialization. Club members also meet for collaborative project such as knitting lap robes for residents of local nursing homes and helmet liners for the armed forces.
A bus trip, however, takes members out of their usual surroundings to see and do things they might otherwise not have an opportunity to experience.
"As we grow older, we don't get out as we did when we had youngsters and worked," said a nonagenarian member of the club whose mother had been a member of the Friendship Club in its earliest years.
Founded in the 1960s, club met at the Masonic Lodge until 1968, when it moved to the Harper Center, the senior center sponsored by the Council on Aging.
Six weeks after the club started selling handmade items, it collected $625, enough for a bus trip.
Their first trip was to Berkshire Carousel, located in the former Crane Stationery Mill in Dalton, where they were greated by its Executive Director Maria Caccavielli.
"She gave an interesting talk, and told us the names of the horses and who sponsored them," said Guiden.
Volunteer artisans have hand-carved and painted 33 wooden horses, a donkey and two chariots that will be featured on the carousel. Begun eight years ago, and the carousel is expected to be up and running in July 2015.
About a year and a half ago, Caccavielli enlisted the help of retiree Tom Callahan, in forming a group to raise funds.
"We needed $1.6 million. It was a quite a challenge," said Callahan via phone.
Though the Berkshire Carousel has been awarded grants from the state and held fundraisers, it still needs about $1.2 million to complete the project. The carousel is expected to be located at Ponterril, a former YMCA summer camp in Pittsfield that was donated to the project. "The YMCA’s generosity will save us $200,000," said Caccavielli.
The club enjoyed lunch at Ozzie's restaurant in Hinsdale and stopped at Rita Marie's in Lanesborough for ice cream.
The bus outing was a success, as club members such as Pat Picard, former president of the club, confirmed.
"Everyone had a good time," she said. Judy Bocher, a member for about a year, chimed in, "It was the first bus trip I've been on with the Friendship Club. It was great!"
The wheels are turning in Guiden's head and that means the wheels of a bus will be turning as the Friendship Club goes on the road again.
"I hope we can go leaf peeping. Perhaps we can ride up to Vermont," said Guiden. "And I'm keeping my eyes and ears open for a musical in the spring."
Tags: clubs, senior center, senior citizens,
