captions, page 4:
Andrey Sazhin, left, and Tayler Shea at the Holly Jolly Bartender Night.
Bryan Smith prepares to remove the beard of Matt Rondeau of the Putnam Police Department.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
‘Tis the season for generosity — a triple helping’s worth.
Every nonprofit in the Quiet Corner, it seems, is seeing records broken in this giving season.
Whether it’s funds, toys, nonperishable foods, turkeys, nonprofits are seeing generosity like never before. And not necessarily just at Christmas.
Paws Cat Shelter in Woodstock saw record-breaking support all year long. Fay Beriau, president/owner (or as she tells everyone “I pay the bills” (lol)) said: “Since the pandemic, I have seen our community become more generous, not only with Paws but with each other. I am on several of the town sites — Plainfield, Killingly, Putnam, Woodstock — and I have seen the residents just step up and help someone when they are in need. If someone needs something, I have watched everyone just jump in and help. With everything happening today, it is very refreshing to see the acts of compassion in our community.” She added, “The generosity of this community is very overwhelming which is why we may not have much, but we try and give back as much as we can.”
Recounting the year of ups and down, Beriau said the community always came through. She said: “Our community is so generous and we want to give back as much as we can. The most recent is the food drive and the idea was that we were low on food for our community. We have many that contact us looking for food etc. We have partnered with Pet Pals Northeast and work together to help change the life of cats in our community. When we took the Jordan Cove cats (all 39 of them) from the hoarding house in February, we were overwhelmed by the community’s support. When we have sick cats and need help raising money for their bills, our community is there” and many more examples, all year long.
Putnam Police Department Chief Christopher D. Ferace said every one of the department’s fund-raisers set records.
He said, “I am absolutely astounded by the generosity of the people of the Northeast. People take care of people up here like no other place.” Police Captain Justin Lussier said, “We are really proud to be a community partner in these efforts”.
Anne Miller, executive director of TEEG, said: “The outreach for the holiday season has been overwhelming and heartwarming.” The list this year is extensive and does not include the many families and individuals who have raised money, businesses who have sent a holiday check, and drives TEEG isn’t aware of, she said. The list: Wasco Corporation- Toy Drive, Quest Martial Arts- Food Drive, Lake Road Generating- Toy/Food Drive, Putnam Rotary- Board Games, Woodstock Fire Departments- Toy Drive, Body Balance- fund-raiser; Signature Properties; Girl Scout Troop- Woodstock- Coat Drive; Putnam Elks/Putnam Supermarket- Food Delivery Baskets for our Seniors for Christmas; Chrome N Steel Veterans Riders Club- Toy Drive; State Police Food Drive; Raceway Golf Club and Tristate Golf Company- Toy Drive; Tourtellotte Memorial High School- Food Drive; Mary R. Fisher Elementary School- Food Drive; Thompson National Junior Honor Society- Food Drive; Bradley Playhouse- Food;
YMCA- Food Drive; Pomfret Proprietors – Food Drive 1st Saturdays of the month – Loos & Co; Woodstock Democratic Town Committee Boot Drive; VFW Putnam – Toy Drive; WINY Food Chain – Karen & Gary Osbrey; Pomfret Community School National Junior Honor Society – Food Drive; Raceway Golf Club and Tristate Golf Company – Toy Drive. She said the Pomfret Community School NJHS collected 1,300 items. “They broke their own 15-year record!”
Karen Osbrey, director of the Interfaith Human Services of Putnam, said on the Daily Bread Facebook page, said around Thanksgiving: “Thank you from all of us at Daily Bread! It was a long weekend of collecting, sorting and weighing donations, plus food distributions and senior deliveries. But due to the never ending generosity of our community and groups like the Putnam Police Department, we were able to support our friends and neighbors in need.”
Amanda Kelly, executive director of the Hale YMCA Youth and Family Center, said although they didn’t set any records this year, they did see donations to their Putnam Family Resource Center and TEEGs giving tree collections go back to “normal” after COVID last December. Hale Y has taken part in that collection since 2016 and Abby Poirier, camp director, took over coordinating the giving tree collection last year. More than 100 donated gifts this year, she said. The Hale Y also received toys from the HYPE Tons of Toys event. “It’s been wonderful to see members feeling more comfortable and returning to working out at the Y, but also seeing their generosity extend to the area children.”
Putnam Police Department Projects
“No Shave November 2021”. It’s a statewide law enforcement campaign initiated by the CT Cancer Foundation. Putnam PD started to participate in 2018, this is our fourth year. For the month of November our police officers who normally aren’t allow to grow beards do not have to shave. They donate the cost of shaving supplies for the month $1 a day ($30) to be allowed to grow a beard and not shave. Then to add some fun we invited the community to fund raise with us, if someone or a business pledges a minimum $50 donation to our fund-raising campaign, they can make that officer shave his beard. This year the “Save it or Shave it” thing took off with one of our Community Service Officers, Matt Rondeau. All of sudden businesses were donating so Matt could keep it and others were donating for him to shave it. It really generated community participation while fund raising for CCF. All proceeds go to the CT Cancer Foundation and we should be making a donation of $2,336. This was our best fund-raising year ever.
“Pink Patch Project 2021” which also started in 2018, my first year here, is public awareness campaign, championed by law enforcement departments across the U.S., designed to bring attention to the fight against breast cancer and to support breast cancer research organizations in combating this disease. This year by selling Putnam Police “pink police patches,” pink “No one fights alone” rubber bracelets along with T-shirts and sweatshirts, we were able to make a $2,500 donation to the Day Kimball Hospital Northeast Cancer Fund.
“Handcuff Hunger 2021” this campaign is driven by Law Enforcement in the northeast, started several years ago before I became chief. The Putnam Police and the CT State Police in their jurisdictions participate in a turkey & food drive the weekend before Thanksgiving. We accept frozen turkeys or hams dinner fixings, and non-perishables, along with cash donations to feed the food insecure over the Thanksgiving and holiday season. All of our efforts and donations go to either the Daily Bread or TEEG to assist those in need in the immediate areas. This year was our most successful year and people seemed extremely generous. The Putnam PD, while collecting outside of Price Chopper, pulled in 164 turkeys, 31 hams, more than 2 tons of nonperishables, $3,975 in cash and $465 in Price Chopper Gift cards. All of which was split by Daily Bread and TEEG.
"Stuff A Cruiser 2021” this is our second year holding the toy drive. In eight hours members of the Putnam Police, standing will be outside WINY Radio, collected new toys and cash to distribute to the Putnam Family Resource Center, providing generous holidays for those families in need. Last year we stuffed a cruiser two and one-half times over and collected $2,900 in cash. This year, he said, The Stuff A Cruiser event went extremely well. We filled a cruiser nearly three times over and received cash donations of $3,440. What a great days for the local community,” he said, adding: “Christmas is for kids and no kid should wake up disappointed on Christmas morning. Our hope was to help make sure every kid has that wonderful Christmas.”
NOW had numerous events — the most recent one being The Holly Jolly Bartender Night fund-raiser which shattered records.
The NOW Holly Jolly Bartender Night was indeed jolly, raising $11,397.
The 3rd Annual NOW Bartender Night fund-raiser will be used to support youth wellness programs and scholarships for children living in the 10-town area.
The Legal Eagles (Tom Borner, Kate Cerrone, Madilyn Smith and Judge Leah Schade) raised $1,232; “The Killer J’s” (Jeff Rawson, Jake Dykeman, Jack Burke and Jimmy Logsdon) raised $1,727; “Bring it to the Bank” raised $722 (Maria Thomas, Jay Howard, Mark Light and Gene Michael Deary); “Talented Talkers” raised $1,242.75 (Jay Byrnes, Tina Chahanovich, Elle-Jordyn Goslin and Gary Osbrey); “The Professionals” took in $1,159 (Jessica Rawson, Dick Loomis, Matt Desaulnier, and Dr. Allie Robin); Bringing the highest total of the night, $2,521, was the “Keep Calm & Sell On” team which included: Jason Verraneault, Andrey Sazhin, Amy Brunet, and Denny Gates; The “Wireless Warriors” raised $728 (Josh Paul, Sam Stamatiou, Patrick Lynch, and Nick Rybacki); The “Martial Arts Mommas” raised $835 (Kristin Duethorn, Michelle Lengyel, Erica Seraphin, and Kristen Finnemore);
In addition to the tips from each shift, the event also raised funds through a drawing for several items donated by local businesses and individuals. NOW Executive Director Tayler Shea said: “We beyond amazed and thrilled with the results of the NOW Holly Jolly Bartender Night. We were optimistic that we would raise as much as the previous year’s event but we were once again blown away by the generosity of our community and surpassing our goal by over $3,000!”
Asked why this area and this year showed over and above generosity, Shea said: “It is amazing how generous this area is! I think it has to do with not being able to do much during the pandemic. I also think a lot of people realized how fortunate they are/how easy it is to fall into unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances. I think the pandemic made a lot of people more empathetic to other people’s situations!”
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