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Community Corner - Sending Out Holiday Wishes
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Happy Holidays to our wonderful community! MOPS/MOMSNext would like to extend a warm wish for love, peace and togetherness during this holiday season. We here at MOPS/MOMSNext have been having a great time crafting, cooking, sharing meals and also listening to some amazing speakers. We recently went out into the community and attended our very first community block party put on by our local Center for Human Services. What a great and fun family outing! We met so many wonderful new people and were able to get our message out into the community and invite a lot of moms to come share great fellowship with us. Thank you so much to Tamberly Humble for inviting us to have a booth at the event. We are definitely looking forward to attending again next year.

We have been crafting up a storm during our monthly meetings at River Oak Grace. Our budget friendly crafts are making quite the splash with all of our moms as we continue to Plunge (our theme this year) into our MOPS/MOMSNext season. We have made some really awesome savings shadow boxes. This allows the moms and kids to see the progress of what they are saving for. We also did a take home dinner craft of Chicken Alfredo. Where else can you get a meal to feed your whole family for only $5? It went off without a hitch and we were so happy to be able to give all of our moms a night off from cooking.

We also started our international outreach program for the semester. We are participating in a program called Living Water. This program helps provides clean water to moms and their babies in other countries who otherwise would not have it. Some of the mothers don't even name their children until they are around the age of two because they are not sure how long they will actually be with them. So we are excited to be bringing a little hope and help to fellow mommies around the world. We have been collecting change in our water bottles and the MOPS/MOMSNext moms have been bringing it in to every meeting so we can add them all together. We are hoping to send them enough to bless at least one little village and provide a good clean water source.

We are super excited for our Holiday Bazaar that is coming up on Saturday, December 8th at River Oak Grace Church. This is our annual craft fair fundraiser for our group. We cordially invite and encourage everyone to attend. There will be lots of vendors, a bake sale and great raffle prizes. We will be holding the bazaar from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. This is a great place to get a jumpstart on all of your holiday shopping. Or even finish it up. There will be all sorts of goods to choose from. Please come out and support your local MOPS/MOMSNext group and also just have a great time.

For more information about our group please contact our MOPS coordinator Kristyn Sorrick at 209-988-5911, or our MOMSNext Coordinator Tracy Mota at 209-324-3649. For future upcoming events, activities and information on our outreach program, please contact our Publicity Chair Toireasa Graham at 916-849-9201.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Holidays!

Erin Pearson is a local resident and mother of both a preschool child and a high school-age child. She is an active member of the local MOPS organization, which draws members from the Oakdale, Riverbank and Escalon areas.