Wakefield Sons & Daughters of Italy Celebrate New Members

In August, the Wakefield Lodge welcomed seven new members. Although we are known as the Wakefield Lodge, our members are from many surrounding towns. That tradition continues with our newest members being from Peabody, Beverly, Reading, North Reading, Stoneham, Saugus, and Wakefield. We are pleased to welcome (pictured left to right) Mike, Janice, Henrietta, Trina, Rita, Gene, and Luann.

In addition to having a delicious barbeque dinner catered by Laurie’s 9:09 at the meeting, members were treated to an author visit. Anne Gardner, author of "And So I Walked: Reflections on Chance, Choice, and the Camino de Santiago", shared some excerpts from her book. On her amazing journey, she walked 500 miles from one side of Spain to the other. Some of the challenges included heat blisters, insect bites and a lack of sanitary facilities. But her rewards included meeting people from all over the world, accomplishing this challenging feat, and finding a spiritual healing from the journey. After the entertaining and informative talk, she answered questions from the impressed members and signed copies of her book. One of our new members partook in a portion of this same walk and she shared her experiences. We commend them both for their accomplishment.

As a reminder, members and those curious about the Lodge should RSVP to Toni by August 21st if you would like to attend a night at Richardson’s in Middleton on August 24th. In addition to many fabulous flavors of ice cream, there is a golf driving range, batting cages, and mini golf. Please email toni.alice@icloud.com if you will be attending so we can all meet there.

Hopefully bocce nights have prepared the members who will participate in an upcoming Grand Lodge tournament in Methuen on September 24th. This event will bring together teams from surrounding Lodges for a friendly competition. It sounds like a fun time!

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, September 13th in Wilmington and will be combined with an evening of bocce. If you are interested in the Lodge, you can do what several guests did this month and attend a meeting to check us out. We welcome hearing from you; please contact President Paula Sasso for information at wakefieldosia@gmail.com. To see more photos and updates, check out the Lodge’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/wakefieldOSIA.