President's Message: Wrapping Up an Action-Packed Year

By Monica Allison,President, Cedar Park Neighbors

This year is going by sooo fast! It's hard to believe that we are entering the final holiday season of the year, and what an action packed year it has been. Hopefully, everyone enjoyed our last newsletter which was circulated throughout the entire Cedar Park Community. We hope you had a chance to enjoy the Cedar Park Fair as well. In that newsletter, we began the conversation about our Holiday Basket outreach that we do yearly. Please donate what you can so that we can feed families who may not be in the position to have a great holiday dinner otherwise.

Our last Meet & Greet was held on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at Dock Street. We want to thank our host for making Cedar Park Neighbors feel welcome. We enjoyed ourselves in your establishment. We are looking forward to planning more Meet & Greet opportunities in 2010. The final Park activity for the year, Fall Into Your Park, will be held on Saturday, November 21, 2009, from 10am to noon. We will put gardens to bed and gather leaves for composting. So if you need leaves, meet us at Cedar Park and come out to help and don’t forget to bring a rake.

As we approach the end of another year, we want to thank all of the volunteers, board members and neighbors for all they have done to help Cedar Park Neighbors continue to be a productive organization in this community. We would like to thank Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who fought to get lighting west of 50th street to 52nd street. We want to thank State Representative James Roebuck for all he has helped us accomplish through this year. Also, if you missed it, we had a great time with Senator Anthony H Williams at The Gold Standard in October. We thank him for his continued support as well.

Please be sure to join us for a general Membership Meeting to be held on Wednesday, December 2 at 7:00 at the Calvary Center at 48th and Baltimore Ave. There are some exciting plans to share about the new year and we need your input. In particular, 2010 is the 50th Anniversary of Cedar Park Neighbors and 2011 is the 100th anniversary of Cedar Park. We want to take this opportunity to celebrate what has been and to vision the future together. Join us as we get into the anniversary spirit and anticipate activities for the coming year.

Lastly, we are entering the winter season. Please check on sick and shut in neighbors, shovel your elderly neighbors walks and steps when it snows, and be of good cheer throughout the upcoming holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Kwanza, and Happy New Year to all! Patronize the businesses in our neighborhood, and remember: There's always something good happening in Cedar Park. See you next year!