Hearts of Hope: November 2019

Here it is, early November, and the weather people had us all worrying about cold and possible snow for tonight's painting event. They started on the weekend going on and on about snow on Tuesday night and record cold and wind. I refused to listen to them, as I wanted no part of canceling tonight's event. If we had to cancel, we wouldn't be able to paint for our Veterans, which is a cause that is so very important to not only me, but to many others on the Hearts of Hope Stratford committee. So I put my head in the sand and refused to listen to the weather prognosticators and kept on with the plans for the event.

And it was a good thing I did, as the snow never happened. Plus our Hearts of Hope followers didn't seem at all bothered by the cold, as they showed up 50+ strong to paint at the Riverview Bistro. It was crazy, how busy we were, but a wonderful crazy! We were given a certain amount of tables we could set up, and every 10-15 minutes or so, we had to ask for another table because another group of 4 or 5 people arrived to paint. We are so blessed to have so many regular attendees and so many new people joining us each month.

So, back to why we were painting...Last night we were painting for Veterans. Our special guest speakers were the Dream Team Moms. You will read more about them further down in the blog.

photo by Marianne Sanford

If you have been following our blog, you have seen these faces before. Lily and Lucy have been volunteering with us for a year, tonight they received their official name tags and shirts. As you can see, they were very excited. I LOVE these two girls! They are sweet and amazing helpers, whose hearts are as big as the great outdoors.

photo by Marianne Sanford

I don't have too many photos from tonight's event, as our event was quite the hopping place to be.

One of our team members, Joanne, also volunteers with a group called The Dream Team Moms. They are a group of women who sew pillow cases and stockings and deliver them to Veterans each December. This year they will again be delivering their stockings to Veterans who are in the VA Hospital in West Haven, a place I have great respect for. The hearts we painted tonight will be put into the stockings they sew, along with toiletries and other goodies they get donated, and will be delivered on December 10th. We will be combining tonight's hearts with the ones painted recently by the Port 5 Women's Auxiliary, so that over 100 hearts will be delivered to the VA Hospital.