Category Archives: News stories

Thanks to everyone who showed up at the Northern Westchester Hospital Halloween event last Sunday.  The kids were so cute decorating and stuffing goody bags for the kids coming through the Inpatient Unit and Emergency Room at the hospital.  There was some great art work going on!

Next up: Join us for Pumpkin Scooping for the Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Historic Hudson Valley.  October 20, 2013, from 9:30am to 12pm.  We are hoping for one of these crisp fall days and encourage anyone who wants to come and get messy to join us!  We will be scooping out pumpkin guts to prepare pumpkins for the amazing carvers that then make them into a creepy, clever Halloween walk.  They need fresh pumpkins to carve each week and really need the extra hands to help prep the pumpkins for the week ahead every Sunday.  So come and hang out with the Menzies and enjoy a day just sitting around, chatting and scooping pumpkins.  Please RSVP SOON so I can give the Blaze lady a heads up — she actually hires people to do this as temp work if she can’t get enough volunteers — so they REALLY need our help.

I am so excited for the Fall line-up this year and just want to be sure everyone has seen the updated options.  Feel free to RSVP for any of them so the hosts can get numbers ahead of time…it really helps and most non-profits really do need to know how many to expect.

This Sunday, September 22nd, Shevicks are hosting at the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy.  Please let them know if you can join in so we know how many projects to target!  Should be a beautiful fall day to get outside and do some work with the kids.

October 6th — Northern Westchester Hospital Halloween event.  Great for little people.  Come stuff goody bags and make get well cards for kids at the hospital and in the emergency room throughout the month of October.

October 20th — Pumpkin Prep for the Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze at Van Cortlandt Manor (*event will be 9:30 – 12)

November 3rd — Part of the Solution soup kitchen helpers needed.  I’ve heard this is an amazing and rewarding experience.

Sign up for one or many and get back in the swing of Favors this fall.  Such a great time to be out and about as a family!

Sign up HERE…

I have a “freebie” for anyone who wants it — AFYA Foundation would like a group to sort on January 12th — anyone interested in ‘hosting’?

Afya’s Vision:  To make a positive impact on the health of people in developing countries in Africa and the Caribbean.
Afya’s Mission:  To support ongoing health initiatives in Africa and the Caribbean by supplying critically needed surplus medical supplies, hospital equipment and humanitarian provisions.  We do this by collecting no longer wanted supplies from the healthcare, corporate and private communities and sending them to our partner organizations on the ground.
Visit www.afyafoundation.org.

Anyone interested, shoot me an email.  First come, first served, don’t be shy!

Hope everyone is enjoying a successful back to school and is ready to jump back into the fall schedule.  Seems painful to me, but I guess there’s no choice!  We are starting to fill our calendar with some awesome looking FaVoRS events — we still need some folks to take dates, so let me know which one you want.  (Hint, hint)  Below is a list of the events coming up and dates still available.  Please RSVP for upcoming events when you get a chance as well…

September 22 — Shevicks at Pound Ridge Land Conservancy
October 6 — open
October 20 — DeSantis at Northern Westchester Hospital
November 3 — Finns at POTS soup kitchen
November 17 — open
December 1 — McKenney/Hervey for Miracle League & Friends of Karen
December 15 — Menzies Family
January 12 — Sirot/Pucci at AFYA Foundation
January 26 — open
February 9 — Duncan/Gutfreunds at Blythedale Hospital
February 23 — open
March 9 — open
March 23 — open
April 6 — open
April 27 — open
May 18 — open
June 1 — open

I sent an email out to a variety of local non-profits looking to see if anyone wanted to request our help.  If anyone wants email/non-profit names I sent to and could do a follow up call — just ask and I’ll give you some contact info.

Open Door Medical Center responded with the following if anyone wants to follow up and pull this together for an event….

Thanks for sending this. Open Door Family Medical Centers books shelves are bare after a summer with many reading volunteers. If the FaVoRs group were interested in another book drive it would be wonderful. We need chubby board books and picture books for our Reach Out and Read Program.  Thanks,  Alicia Ward, Volunteer Coordinator, Open Door Foundation.  Direct Phone: 914-502-1468. Email: award@odfmc.org

Someone did a book drive for Open Door a few years back and got a ton of books for them.  Then we did a book mark and sorting books activity with our  kids to tie it all in.  Any family running this would be encouraged to run a side book drive at a school, church/synagogue, etc to collect books.  We can’t rely solely on Favors members to donate books.  The family who ran it last did a book collection with their friends, etc and then did a little PR so that we accepted books from the community the day of the event as well.  We set up at Open Door on the lawn in Mt Kisco…and it was actually a great event!  Read about the Reach out and read program here.

Please join us from 1:00pm-3:00 pm on Sunday, September 22nd.

We will be helping The Pound Ridge Land Conservancy which is in the process of restoring the native plant community in a Land Conservancy Meadow.  Volunteers will work on pulling easily-identifiable invasive plants, spreading seed, and setting fencing around sensitive plants. There are ticks and some thorny plants in the meadow, so volunteers should wear long pants and shirt-sleeves and bring work gloves.  They have an assortment of tools there (and some extra gloves to lend) but it’s very handy to have one’s own hand-clipper along if you own them.  We will meet at the Armstrong House, 1361 Old Post Road in Pound Ridge. There is a sign along the driveway that alerts you to a private residence (this house) ahead and asks hikers to park below closer to our trail kiosk. For this event, ignore the sign and drive right up to the house.  We will meet at the house and take a short walk to the meadow  from there.  Please call Jenny Shevick at 917 873-8735 if you have any questions!

I hope you are all enjoying the last vestiges of vacations, summer fun, and freedom from schedules…but in case you are starting to fill in your fall calendars like I am (groan), I wanted to get you some potential Favors dates.  I hope that you will all onsider joining us again this year for some events…and I hope you will consider hosting dates and events.  If you are over-cooked and can’t participate by this year, I understand, just email me to take your name off of the list.  No worries, no guilt.  BUT if you would like to keep participating….email me a date to save for your family and we’ll go from there.

Also, I would love to add some new families, so if you have any ideas of folks who might enjoy this group, please reach out to them and have them email me to get ON the list.  The more the merrier.

All the best for a great rest of the summer.  See dates below for your calendars…

September 22
October 6, October 20
November 3, November 17
December 1, December 15
January 12, January 26
February 9, February 23
March 9, March 23
April 6, April 27
May 18
June 1

I did my best to build the schedule around major holidays and vacations, but if I missed anything let me know.

Gretchen and company

And we’re in the home stretch!  I know this is a crazy time of year and you all get so many emails and reminders your head is spinning, but I do have to add one more.  Our Favors pool party is coming up on June 16th at 3pm and I need a final count for catering.  Please RSVP by this Friday whether you can make it or not.  Currently I am assuming the following people are attending: Tomsons, Gerken, Shevick, Duncan-Gutfreund, DeSantis…if you are not listed here and plan on coming, please RSVP.  If you do not plan on coming, can you RSVP that way too just so I can stop bugging people and wondering if five families are suddenly going to tell me the day before that they’re stopping by.

Whether you attended one event or many, we all deserve a little party to celebrate making it through yet another over-active school year!  Looking forward to some fun in the sun and some relaxing time with friends before we all disperse for the summer.  Can’t wait.

EVENT THIS SUNDAY, June 2nd, 2013, from 1 to 3pm. 
Please join us for an ice cream social at Rosary Hill Home. We will serve ice cream with toppings and chat with patients while possibly listening and clapping with live piano playing. Depending on the patients’ energy level we may end a little before 3pm. Rosary Hill is a skilled nursing facility that provides palliative care to patients with incurable cancer. This wonderful home is run completely on donations and is free for patients who cannot afford to pay for care.
Rosary Hill Home, 600 Linda Avenue, Hawthorne, NY 10532, Tel.: 914/769-0114.   Hosts: Kerry, Dan, Greta, Amelia, and Sam Tomson. Email: kerrytomson@optonline.net.
So far we only have two families attending — hope you can join us!!!! 

And if you’re on the site RSVP’ing for the June 2nd event, please let the Menzies know if you plan on attending the pool party on June 16th as well.  We need to know how much food to order ahead of time.

RSVP HERE!

Just reminding everyone — there’s an event this Sunday, May 19th at 11am at Westmoreland Sanctuary.  Please let us know if you will be able to attend.

And while you’re on the site…feel free to RSVP for June 2nd and June 16th (I need numbers for catering ahead of time, so would love to hear yes or no earlier than the couple days before if possible)

I know Spring is a crazy time for all — we’d love to see people at events, but if not, understand that too — just let us know either way.

Thanks!