Household Hazardous Waste Day is this Saturday, May 18, from 9 am to 2 pm, at the Newtown Public Works site, 4 Turkey Hill Road. Load up your vehicle with all those items of a chemical nature or cans of paint that you cannot otherwise safely dispose of and staff at Public Works will take them off your hands. For a list of what can and cannot be accepted, visit [naviga:u]hrra.org[/naviga:u].

Gardeners, take note! Also on Saturday, May 18, from 9 am to 1 pm, there will be a plant sale fundraiser and educational event at the Fairfield County Extension Center, 67 Stony Hill Road in Bethel. Native perennial plants, vegetables, annuals, and bulbs will be for sale at great prices. You’ll also find an auction booth, organic herb baskets, handcrafted wooden planters, honeybee hives, and more. Master Gardeners will also be onsite to answer questions and provide educational materials. This fundraiser supports the Extension Master Gardener program. For more information, contact the Fairfield County Extension Center at 203-207-8440.

The tenth anniversary of Strutt Your Mutt takes place Saturday, as well, starting at 11 am at Fairfield Hills; Margaret Reed looks back at the event's history and why it's still important for Newtown Park and Bark [naviga:u]in her column this week[/naviga:u]. Just $10 per dog/handler gets you three hours of fun and contests. Visit [naviga:u]newtown-ct.gov/parks-recreation[/naviga:u] for details.

You’re going to need to relax after such a busy morning, so head on over to Newtown Meeting House on Main Street, where the [naviga:u]Newtown Choral Society will present its spring concert, “Centuries of Hit Parades!”[/naviga:u] beginning at 4 pm. Tickets are $10 at the door, $8 for seniors and students. 

If that’s not enough music for you, head to the Village Green on Glen Road, where everyone will be [naviga:u]Rockin’ The Hook, from noon to 7 pm, Sunday, May 19[/naviga:u]. The show goes on, rain or shine!

Head O’ Meadow Elementary School’s door to the main office is still decorated with this bee-themed door, which second grade teacher Jaimie Kurtz decorated as part of a Secretaries’ Day Committee effort at the school. Administrative Professionals’ Day was nationally celebrated April 24. I understand this decorated door surprised both Administrative Assistant Toni Baranowski and secretary Laurie Martinelli when it was completed. The door is decorated with paper flowers, bees, and a hive. It reads, “Mrs Baranowski and Mrs Martinelli will always bee our favorites.”

Do you happen to have an upright piano hanging around you want to give away, or are you a creative artist? The Free Keys CT Piano Trail is currently looking for donations of upright pianos; artists to volunteer their time and talent to paint a piano at the historic C. Cowles Company factory building, located at 83 Water Street in New Haven, the week of June 17; and volunteers to sand and prime the pianos. If you’re interested, contact [naviga:u]freekeysct@gmail.com[/naviga:u].

[naviga:u]Community members are invited[/naviga:u] to meet the 2019 Newtown Treasures this Sunday, May 19. Honored this year will be volunteers of Newtown Volunteer Nurse Association and Bee Publisher R. Scudder Smith. Join in on the reception from 1 to 3 pm in The Great Room of Newtown Congregational Church, 14 West Street.

Looking for books that speak to the African-American experience for youth? You may enjoy books like Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome. And on Tuesday, May 21, from 7 to 8 pm, Byrd's Books will host Bethel educator and children’s literature consultant Robert A. Zupperoli for a talk and slide presentation to uncover the newest and award-winning books for young audiences that focus on black history in the United States. The event is free and open to all. To add to the classroom or home library, a special 25 percent off sale will be featured on selected titles for attendees. Register at [naviga:u]conta.cc/30i0wOk[/naviga:u]. Byrd’s Books is at 178 Greenwood Avenue, adjacent to The Toy Room and across the street from Bethel Public Library.

Newtown resident Dave Brooker is in the process of creating custom necklaces for [naviga:u]Ben’s Bells Connecticut’s upcoming [/naviga:u][naviga:u]Celebration of Kindness[/naviga:u] event. Each “be kind” pendent is decorated with Mr Brooker’s colorful splatter paint design and has the number “19” on the back to differentiate them from his work from previous years. Those interested in purchasing the exclusive necklaces can attend the Celebration of Kindness fundraiser, scheduled to take place on Wednesday, May 22, from 7 to 10 pm, at Michael’s at the Grove in Bethel. Tickets are $75, with food and beverages included, as well as cash bar. Music, a live and a silent auction, and lots more fun — plus a chance to buy one of Dave’s artful necklaces — is scheduled. Get tickets at [naviga:u]bensbells.org/celebrate[/naviga:u].

Don’t miss out on the chance for winning great prizes! The 19th Annual Lions Club Duck Race [naviga:u]rushes down the Pootatuck River on Saturday, May 25[/naviga:u], at 2:30 pm. You’ll want to have a duck race ticket in hand: maybe you’ll win the check for $2,000, a gift card to one of our local businesses, or theater tickets — or even a subscription to The Newtown Bee. These ducky tickets are on sale from Lions Club members or throughout Sandy Hook Center on race day, until 2 pm. The fun begins at 10 am with family fun activities from Newtown United Methodist Church on Church Hill Road to the park behind the Foundry (where you can view the raft of duckies bumping their ways down the river). Visit [naviga:u]newtownlions.org [/naviga:u]for more information. 

It was a day of beating hunger in Newtown, with the Second Annual Run4Hunger up at Fairfield Hills and the USPS Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive taking place last Saturday. Jacqueline Watson from Newtown Social Services, which benefits from the USPS food drive, tells us that the food pantry at the 3 Main Street office is in good shape right now, thanks to the donations received May 11. She also thanks the volunteers, including a number of high school students, who have helped her sort donations and restock the food pantry shelves.

I was pretty happy to be clothed in my year around fur coat at the start of this week. Plenty of non-felines, I observed, were digging out the long sleeves and Polar Fleece jackets from Sunday to Tuesday, when temperatures struggled to hit 50 degrees. It’s not your imagination: this has been an unusually rainy and chilly month of May. If we can believe the weather reports, though, things should be feeling more springlike over the next several days. Perhaps we should just be thankful that we are not experiencing storms like the 2018 macroburst that devastated parts of our town last May 15!

We are excited to be hosting our first Community Buzz this Friday at The Newtown Bee and appreciate all who have expressed interest in being part of our semi-regular conversations going forward. Look for an upcoming article about the May 17 Buzz! And if you would like to get in on a conversation sometime in the future, send your name and daytime contact information to [naviga:u]editor@thebee.com[/naviga:u][naviga:u],[/naviga:u] subject line Community Buzz. You don’t have to be an expert in any area, just someone who likes to share and hear others’ thoughts.

It’s no secret that I love sharing my thoughts every week. Be sure to... Read me again.