Today’s Meeting: Aaron Kovach – Cryotherapy
Future Speakers:
October 23rd – Jennifer Knisely – Altoona Library Services
October 30th – Dave Aikens – Discussing his recent trip to the AMBUCS National Convention
Whacha’ May Have Missed Last Week: Our guest speaker was Melody Ray who is the volunteer coordinator of the Healing Patch, a Home Nursing Hospice program. Melody has been working at Home Nursing for 8 years in grief services and previously 
was the Hospice coordinator in Cambia County. Through her work at the Healing Patch, which is a children’s grief program, Melody began to notice an increase in children who lost a loved one to substance overdoses. Since many of these deaths occur to people in the 20’s to 40’s, often they leave children behind. She consulted the center’s lending library to find resources to help children and quickly learned that none existed. She contacted a number of authors who had written other books on the grief process, but found that no one had authored such a book. It was at this point when she took it upon herself to draft a book on the subject. After an extensive search she found a non-profit publisher as well as an illustrator for her book. Her efforts paid off when the finished book was released in March of this year. Melody credited social media with promoting the book and noted that Amazon’s first supply of the book sold out. Melody’s book, “Someone I Love Died from a Drug Overdose” helps a child through the grieving process by providing honest answers to such deaths. Melody ended her remarks by providing some sobering statistics, such as that in 2017, over 72,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses! She provided local statistics of drug deaths in both Blair and Cambria counties; with Cambria’s annual deaths rising from 43 in 2014 to 87 in 2017 and Blair’s rising from 22 to 52 in the same period. Melody finished by saying that the Healing Patch is there to help in the grieving process for both children and their families. For more information about the Healing Patch, visit them at www. homenursingagency.com/our-services/childrens-services/healing-patch.
Guests of the Day:
…..There were no guests last week.
News of the Week:
…..Paul Dick passed around a sign-up sheet to man the AMBUCS booth at this year’s Pumpkinfest in downtown Hollidaysburg on Saturday October 20th. We will have a booth with an Amtryke on display and we will be selling Gardner’s candy bars as an early kickoff to our annual Christmas candy sale. Why not help spread the word about AMBUCS and sign up for an hour.
…..Also on October 20th, the club will be presenting three Amtrykes at the Bavarian Aid Society Hall at 112 S. 13th Street, Altoona. Each year the Society celebrates their anniversary with an Octoberfest style evening. Traditionally they invite the AMBUCS to the event where we give away an Amtryke and they honor us by presenting us with a donation for our Amtryke fund. Ed Farabaugh will be presenting the three trykes and discussing with the attendees what AMBUCS does for the community. The event is open to the public for a $5 cover charge. The AMBUCS portion of the evening will be from 7:30 to 8:00. Why not come out to the Bavarian that evening and support the AMBUCS? Three Amtrykes given away, good food, a dance and lots of fellowship!
…..Rachel DiAndrea promoted the AMBUCS participation in the Altoona Christmas parade on Thursday November 29th. Volunteers will be needed to decorate the AMBUCS float and to participate in the parade as walkers to assist the children with their Amtrykes. More details soon.
…..My apologies to Mark Ford when I missed his name as one of our “500 Club” honorees at lunch on October 2nd.
…..Last week it was announced that we had received an invitation to the club from the Sunshine Rotary to participate in their annual spaghetti dinner fundraiser next April. If we agree to participate, we will be expected to sell tickets to the event at $8, find corporate sponsors at $200, obtain corporate placemat adds at $75, help provide desserts, and provide volunteers to help the day of the event. For our efforts, it is anticipated that we would receive $3,000 to $4,000 from the profits. Treasurer Paul Dick will provide more details this week and a club discussion and vote on the idea will be scheduled for a future meeting, possibly October 30th.
…..There were no “33” scores this weekend but there’s always Monday Night Football. If there are no winners on Monday, the pot for next weekend will be $60 for a “33” team and $20 for their opponent.
…..Last week’s raffle ticket winner was Ed Garlena. Ed’s choice of the Queen of Spades was rather poor for him. That means that next week’s winner will be choosing from the remaining 46 cards (44 cards – 2 Jokers) for a chance to win the pot of over $200. Good luck…it could be your chance to pick out one of the Jokers!
In Closing:
One night a husband takes his wife to a disco. All of a sudden, a guy takes over the floor, break dancing…moonwalking…doing back flips…the whole works. The wife turns to the husband and says: “See that guy? Twenty-five years ago, he proposed to me and I turned him down.” The husband, taking one more look at the dancing man, says: “Looks to me like he’s still celebrating!”