How Much Do You Know About the Thursday Morning Club?

Did you know that the Thursday Morning Club owns and operates the Madison Community House?

The TMC had their first meeting to form the Club on January 8, 1896, yes 1896! It became part of the NJ State Federation in 1900 and the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1907. We were incorporated in NJ in 1912.

After years of being a club with a mission to service and aid the community, the TMC with a bequest from club member Mary B. Cash, the Madison Community House, originally known as the Settlement House was built in 1924.

Did you also know that TMC operates the Before and After School Child Care Program (BASCC) which is located at the three Madison Elementary schools starting at 7:00 AM and the afternoon portion goes until 6:15 PM. We also operate a nursery school for 3 and 4 yr. olds on site at the Madison Community House. Both programs are licensed by the State of NJ.

The TMC has over 260 members that volunteer their precious time to help Madison and the surrounding communities. We have members from six states across the country and 30 NJ towns and seven NJ counties from Passaic County to Ocean County.

They’ve knitted hats and gloves for the Madison Eagle Christmas Fund, hats for the military to wear under their helmets and baby hats for NICU units of local hospitals. They will also teach knitting to anyone that would like to learn. We also teamed up with the Madison Eagle Christmas Fund and shopped for presents for local Senior Citizens.

TMC’s Home Life Dept. does “Operation Cookie / Candy”. Member’s bake items for local nursing homes and senior centers. They package and deliver the items in February or March. We also partnered with Reach Out and Read and collected children’s books and donated them to Zufall Health Center in Morristown.

TMC is working with the NJ State Federation of Women’s Clubs (NJSFWC) on their special state project which supports the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI). They collected personal necessities for our Military and put them into 50 Christmas Stockings and shipped them overseas through Boatsie’s Boxes. Once again we partnered with NJSFWC and supported NAMI by having members donate 14 full-size backpacks or money towards the purchase of them and then filling them with personal items such as socks, reusable water bottles, notepads, thermal mugs, and towels.

TMC has an Education Dept. that holds a Scholarship Social every January to fundraise to send two students to these wonderful programs, Hugh O’Brien (HOBY) and Girls Career Institute (GCI).

If you like to cook or bake, TMC has their own Catering Dept. They have catered breakfast, lunch and dinner events for our programs, but have also catered to other groups upon request.

On an ongoing basis, TMC collects eye glasses for the needy, soda can tabs, Box Top Labels and Campbell’s Soup labels.

To take a break from all their fundraising and volunteering activities, the TMC members also love to play Bridge, Mah Jongg & Bunco, have a monthly book club, and go to dinner & movies with their TMC Friends.

Everything listed above is only a small portion of what the TMC does, there’s much, much more. So if you’re up for the challenge and would like to become part of this wonderful organization as a TMC member, please contact the Thursday Morning Club’s Madison Community House at 973-377-0244 and request a membership packet. Visit our website at www.thursdaymorningclub.org or Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Thursday-Morning-Club-481881411825926/ and follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/TMCMCH25

In February we will be having our 2nd Wise Wonderful Women Lunch & Lecture Series. Also our monthly General Meeting with speaker Nancy Deihl: “Flappers and Sheiks: Fashions of the 1920’s. Bunco and Pizza and of course our monthly book group is meeting.

All of our fundraising efforts help keep the Madison Community House and their programs running and teams up with groups like NAMI and Boatsie’s Boxes.