Community & Clubs:

Here is an e-mail our family received Tuesday from Someone Cares Soup Kitchen. We are sending in our contribution and encourage others to do so as well:

“We’re writing this emergency letter because we are in dire need of help in order to keep the soup kitchen and tutoring program open.

“Times are extremely hard, both for nonprofits and for the people they help. Right now, we are down to less than two months operating funds in the bank when normally we have at least six. We are cutting costs in every way possible, from rewashing sorely used mop heads instead of replacing them, to having our small staff, from dishwasher to director, agree to a pay cut. Next will come reducing the number of hours we are open.

“We desperately need your help to keep from cutting services. It was Someone Cares founder Merle Hatleberg’s dream to one day open her doors and find no one waiting there. She knew then her mission would be accomplished. It would be so very tragic to have to stop helping our community for lack of funds.

“Someone Cares is unique in that over 89% of each donated dollar ‘goes into the soup pot.’ Annually we are serving over 120,000 nutritious meals, in addition to passing out crucial hygiene and child care items, and making numerous other human needs referrals. A gift of $25 feeds eight meals and much more. For electronic payments through PayPal, please visit the website — www.someonecareskitchen.org.”

Signed, Shannon Santos, executive director

Santos can be e-mailed at shannon@someonecareskitchen.org.

VACATIONING IN AVALON

Vacations for Barbara and me the past several years have been on cruise ships in the Caribbean or around Italy. Last year, we also got a four-day vacation in over Labor Day weekend in Avalon.

The Avalon vacation was so enjoyable that we just finished an eight-day vacation there this past week with daughter Stacy and Kyle, her fiancé, who joined us for three days.

For some 20 years, our family has vacationed in Avalon, for it is easy to get to, affordable and safe for the daughters when they were growing up.

Many of the faces of those who we have met over the years on our annual trip are the same. Bob Black at the Catalina Flyer office ( www.catalinainfo.com) on Balboa sold us the round-trip tickets to Avalon while Captain Steve Forbath skippered the Catalina Flyer during the hour-and-15-minute trip to Avalon.