Welcome Club Of Mountaintop Provides Variety Of Activities

By GRETCHEN KNAPP_Correspondent

As the summer days wane, and so goes a season of travel to places far and wide, it's time once again to look to what our little corner of the world has to offer in the way of entertainment, to see us through the long cold months ahead. This is especially relevant for stay-at-home moms with children returning to school, as they wave good-bye at the bus stop with equal amounts of sadness and relief.

One popular resource our community boasts is the Welcome Club of Mountain Top, of which about 100 residents are members. As the name implies, its primary reason for existence is to welcome new families into our area, while it provides all women in the area, whether newlyarrived or life-long residents, and especially stay-at-home moms, the opportunity for discourse among peers while their children enjoy fun activities and cavort with playmates.

The Club does much more than this for its members and the community it serves. Women of all ages are welcome and encouraged to join, and the Club caters to a variety of interests, providing, as follows: Dinner Club (for husbands too!); Arts & Crafts; Scrap-booking Club; Needlework Club; Book Club; Recipe Club; Moms and Tots - scheduled trips for moms and pre-school aged children to area theater houses, museums and other venues for entertainment; Preschool Playgroup, where moms are invited to chat while the kids play at a hosting member's home; and Coffee and Babies, with the same idea.

An annual Newcomers barbeque and bonfire is scheduled in September for existing members and their families, and also new families interested in joining. After a fewyears- hiatus, the old tradition of the "Scavenger Hunt," where contestants vie to be the first to decipher clues in spots within driving distance in the area, will be resurrected. Current President Karin Caporuscio will spearhead this effort for the enjoyment of the rest of the members.

All members are welcome to come to general meetings held once a month at the Presbyterian Church on Chestnut Street featuring catered lunches and guest speakers for a very reasonable price of around five dollars, with babysitting provided at only three dollars per child. The speakers are always selected on the merits of providing an entertaining and informative presentation on topics of interest. Past speakers have included representatives of area fitness centers and beauty salons.

Lael Swank, Publicity Chair, welcomes all who are interested to the first meeting, which will be held on Thursday, September 20th at noon, to attend and see what the Club is about. It is a happily-embraced standard procedure for board members to immediately welcome new faces at the meetings and ensure they are seated and introduced to others so they feel comfortable, so hopefully those who do not yet know anyone will take the initiative and come on out..

The first general meeting of the season will feature representatives of four local charities who have been asked to provide presentations detailing the ideals and accomplishments of their respective organizations. Members, in a ballot included in the monthly e-mailed newsletter, will then be asked to vote on which three charities will be given all of the proceeds from the Welcome Club's popular annual auction. The auction, held in early spring, consists of numerous donations of items, baskets and gift certificates donated by members and annual businesses, on which participants bid (all area residents are invited), for the benefit of the chosen organizations, which in the past have included the Marian Sutherland Kirby Library, the Mountain Top Youth Soccer Association, and the Wright Township Park Expansion Project. Past donations to the selected charities has been about $2,000 for each.

In addition to the auction, which falls under the auspices of the Ways and Means Committee, the Club sponsors numerous projects for the benefit of the community, especially for its less fortunate members. The Services Committee works in cooperation with St. Paul's Lutheran Church in collecting donations for its food bank, and for anonymous children (first names used only) in the community, referred by St. Paul's, to receive donations of hats and mittens, and also holiday gifts as part of the Angel Tree Program and Easter Baskets in the spring. The Club sponsors Military Care Packages for our servicemen and -women overseas, and members assist with the Volunteers of America program, which helps unwed mothers with baby items. A stretch of Route 309 in the vicinity of Walden Park is kept clean and free of litter, maintained by the Club in its Adopt-A-Highway program.

Caporuscio, in her first year as President, lists some of the Club's main objectives as increasing both membership in the club and involvement with its service projects. She wanted to stress to the community and prospective members the fact that the Club donates all of the money it takes in from the annual charity auction directly to local organizations. "The Welcome Club is a great way for new and existing members of the area to meet one another,"she noted, "and we are proud of the ways we serve the community in which we live."

As the cover of its complimentary directory for members reads, "There are no strangers - just friends who haven't met yet." Since the first documented President oversaw its general meetings and service endeavors in 1969, the Club has grown and evolved in the following decades to meet the needs of its members and the community. The perfectly-pressed, bell-bottomed homemakers of the seventies welcoming newcomers to their justbuilt ranchers and split-levels have given way to the moms of the new millennium, perhaps at-home, or juggling careers and a family. But these contemporary mothers' social needs and ideals remain the same as those of previous generations, to find safe and fun activities along with friendly playmates for their children, and also the opportunity to meet and have an outlet for advice and empathetic conversation with other women in similar situations.

The Club sends out a letter to new residents inviting them to attend the next general meeting. Members have also joined by old-fashioned word-ofmouth, hearing friends and acquaintances mention their pleasure with it. Swank, a life-long resident of Mountain Top who just recently became involved in the Club, noted that a misconception regarding the Club is that it is for new residents only. She remembers a few years ago when her oldest son was a toddler, and other moms who are friends and neighbors worked full-time, she did not have an outlet for social interaction for her son or herself during the weekdays. She is thrilled with the opportunities the club has provided, and urges women of any age and length of residency who are interested in joining to come to the first meeting, and, as the commercials say, "Get out there."