Community Corner
Fifty Plus Club Holds Christmas Party Despite Setbacks
The 50 Plus Club of St. Bernadette Catholic Church held its annual Christmas celebration even with the absence of the night's planned entertainment.
The St. Bernadette Catholic Church's 50 Plus Club held its annual Christmas party Thursday evening, despite the remnants of Wednesday night's ice storm. Turnout was smaller than normal with only about 30 of the club's 95 members present. The bigger disappointment, however, was the absence of the night's planned entertainment, the Mehlville High School choir.
This was the second year that the 50 Plus Club invited the choir to perform at the Christmas party, but when 7:30 p.m. came and went with no sign of the students, the party moved on without them. Shirley James, the vice president in charge of entertainment, said her best guess was that the no-show was a result of school being cancelled at Mehlville that day.
To fill in for the missing entertainment, President Dale Baumann stood up behind the podium and told jokes.
"Ever notice that when you put the words 'the' and 'IRS' together, it spells 'theirs'?" he said, drawing a spattering of chuckles from the crowd.
Members were invited to bring canned foods to donate to the Jefferson Barracks food bank, a drive that the club does annually around either Thanksgiving or Christmas. There was also a "Pot of Gold" drawing in which everyone put some money into a pot in exchange for raffle tickets. Half of the money was given away as prizes and the other half was donated to the church.
The 50 Plus Club meets every month at St. Bernadette, providing a social outlet for members of the church over the age of 50. Baumann said the club's mission is to support the parish and give older people activities to keep them involved and active. Activities involve day trips to concerts, casinos, baseball games and racetracks, as well as gardening on the church grounds and promoting the church in the Jefferson Barracks community.
