Braving the wind and cold, several Community Women’s Club of North East (CWCNE) members and volunteers played the role of the Easter Bunny on April 2 in the North East area by providing small Easter baskets to senior citizens and shut-ins. 

Each basket contained three pieces of fruit, cheese crackers, some candies, an Easter note and a CWCNE brochure. Local senior living communities and area churches and agencies provided the names of basket recipients.

“Our Easter Baskets Project is our organization’s oldest service activity, dating back to when our group was the North East Jr. Women’s Club,” CWCNE President Sue Hammond said. “We really enjoy helping to brighten the day of some of our community members with this annual project. We did not let the pandemic stop us this year, nor last year.”

CWCNE Easter baskets co-chairs were Sharon Wagner and Sue Hammond. Club members raised funds in support of this project, personally donated candy for the baskets and helped to deliver all of the baskets that one club member assembled, a task that in non-pandemic times is done with the help of all club members and some volunteers. 

CWCNE members who assisted with the contactless basket deliveries were Kim Becker, Shelley Chwatek, Sue Hammond, Kim MacKellar, Michele Parrish and Bonnie Rearick.

This community service project could not be made possible without the support of local businesses and also volunteers. 

CWCNE is grateful to Greenfield Basket Factory Inc., Sander’s Markets and Orton’s Fruit Market for their generous contributions. Also, CWCNE is thankful to the following volunteers for their assistance: Amiya Sacco, Nicholas Sacco, Noah Sacco, Bill Wagner and Jim Wakeman. Extra fruits and crackers from this project were donated to local families.

For more information about CWCNE, email suehammond74@gmail.com, call 814-440-8255; find CWCNE on Facebook; or write to P.O. Box 103, North East, PA 16428-0103. 

CWCNE is actively seeking new members who would like to have fun, while joining in on its volunteer community service projects.