January 2025

Message from the President

The month of November is identified with Thanksgiving. In that spirit, I am sharing this message with all of you . . . our Villagers, supporters and friends.

Gratitude is a quality that happy people share. Studies have shown that the two qualities that happy people all seem to have in common are gratitude and agency. Pasadena Village clearly provides Villagers with agency in their lives because we have so many opportunities for our members to participate in the world.

Gratitude, however, is a little different quality. We do provide opportunities to express our thanks, but we can always express it better. Having gratitude is beneficial to the person experiencing it but, it is also helpful to the person who inspires gratitude when they learn that they know you feel it. As Villagers, I think we can do more to communicate our gratitude.

The Village is a community driven and led by our members. It is their efforts and contributions that make everything work that we should be grateful for, like:

- Board Directors who commit time out of their lives to serve on our board and help set priorities and oversee the activities of our community. Some of our Board Directors are not members but are part of the larger community who take time out of their busy working lives to help create our community as a Village.

- Villagers who accept the responsibility of leading committees or teams that deal with various issues and activities for our community.

- Villagers who serve on committees and teams to do the actual work required.

- Villagers who organize small group gatherings to pursue interests that they share with other Villagers.

- Villagers, as well as supporters and friends who are not members, volunteer time to provide other services such as volunteering to drive or help with event details.

- Villagers who help their neighbors in small ways such as picking up packages, gardening and other acts of caring.

These are just a few of the many things that we should be grateful for. All of these people working together make the Village what it is and without their efforts we would not be the thriving community that we are.

Look around you and see who the people are who are doing these things and let them know that you appreciate their “lagniappe”... their doing a “little bit more.” This small step will make the world a better place.

I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving and end this year healthy, happy and hopeful.

Sincerely,

Dick Myers