April Showers (& Sunshine!)

April is National Volunteers month so--for this month--be prepared to hear about our amazing volunteers via our blog and social media accounts! We'll start with saying how amazing they are! Come rain or shine, they show up ready to deliver meals with a smile. Some of them have been volunteering with us for over 15 years! Some of them bring their children for their routes and teach the younger generation how to give back to the community. (Like Lauren down below!) Throughout COVID they geared up and kept on delivering food to eat and making sure our clients were doing all right. We are completely humbled to have that amount of dedication assisting us with our outreach in the community!

Volunteer Lauren and her helpers!

Our volunteers mean the world to us, but they mean even more to the seniors they serve. One of our seniors hand-wrote a note to the center saying:

"After my car accident, my legs didn't work as well. I want to say thank you. I appreciate the meals. Also appreciate the volunteers that take time out of their busy day to deliver my meals. I want to say thank you."

This is but one of the many wonderful things our clients have to say about our volunteers. There will be more to come.

If you are interested in joining a team of amazing, selfless, wonderful people, join our volunteers! Perhaps delivering meals to seniors an hour a week (or once a month) sounds like a doable way to give back (and it is most definitely doable). Give us a call : 803-635-3015. (Right now, we could really use more help with meal deliveries on Thursdays and Fridays.) If you are looking for other volunteering opportunities, here are some of the other ways that volunteers can help at the senior center.

• Greeters/Guides

• Lead programs (Volunteers lead, FCCOA helps)

• Assist with programs (FCCOA leads, volunteers help)

• Decorating the Senior Center

• Recruit other volunteers/marketing events/pass out information/social media boosts

• Meals on Wheels

• Setup/takedown for events

• Telephone calls/wellness checks

If you have an hour to spare during the week, we'd love to have you spend it with us. Call the office at 803-635-3015 or follow this link:

I want to volunteer!

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Haley and Angela Connor, our Executive Director, are pictured here with the donation of cookies Haley made to FCCOA.

While we're talking about amazing people, let me tell you about Haley from a local Girl Scout Troop. She is a serious scout with a heart for giving back to the community. As she sells her cookies every year, she also takes up donations for a local non-profit. This year she chose FCCOA! This young person donated over 100 boxes of girl scout cookies to be distributed to our Ridgeway clients! We were incredibly inspired and humbled by her generosity. Thank you for thinking of the seniors, Haley! We delivered and they were positively delighted at this unexpected gift.

Patsy, a long-time volunteer of FCCOA, is pictured here with the cookies she helped to deliver on her route.

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Now for some gray news. The FCCOA YardSale, scheduled for Friday, April 8th, has been postponed. We hope to join in the Big Grab this year. Stay tuned!

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Last, but not least, it is National Poetry Month, and we wanted to leave you with a spring Haiku by poet Jan Allison:

forest newly dressed

wearing her emerald gown

she dreams of summer.

Stay dry this April, everyone!