October is Adopt-A-Shelter Dog Month, and The Newtown Bee has again partnered with Newtown Animal Shelter to make life more comfortable for dogs waiting to find their forever homes. Through Friday, October 28, a donation box is in the lobby of our office at 5 Church Hill Road, for donations to help the shelter. We’ve already received some nice donations, and we thank readers who have helped with this annual effort. We’d love to see the box overflowing by the end of the month. Everything from food, treats, toothpaste and pig’s ears to toys, cleaning supplies and pet store gift certificates is being gratefully accepted. The collection will be delivered to the shelter at the end of the month. Our office is open weekdays between 8 am and 5 pm, earlier and later by chance. Our office dogs may bark when you come in the front door, but we’d like to think that’s just their way of saying Thank You on behalf of those who haven’t been adopted yet.

Fall Book Donation Day, sponsored by the Friends of the C.H. Booth Library, is set for Sunday, October 16, rain or shine, from noon to 5 pm, in the rear parking lot of the library, 25 Main Street. Volunteers will be on hand to help vehicles and provide tax receipts. Donations of new and gently-used books, as well as good-condition DVDs, CDs, LPs, video games, complete jigsaw puzzles and board games, and materials of antiquarian interest are all appreciated. The Friends cannot accept encyclopedias, outdated reference, textbooks and travel guides, Time-Life Series and Reader’s Digest books, VHS tapes, magazines, or free publications. Donated items allow the Friends to raise money for the library through the Holiday Sale in December, their big annual summer book sale, and the Book Store, which operates year-round near the library’s circulation desk.

Halloween is approaching, and it’s time for a reminder to our readers that while Trick or Treating along Main Street is a beloved local tradition, it is not a town-sponsored event. Residents along Main Street handle all of their decorating and expect hundreds if not a few thousand children to visit them beginning late afternoon October 31. This leads into our next annual reminder: anyone planning to go outside their home neighborhood to join the fun on Main Street really should consider donating candy to those homeowners. We’re not kidding or exaggerating when we say Main Street residents have seen up to 3,000 children at their door on past Halloweens. Newtown Parks & Rec has long hosted candy collections for just this purpose, and the department is doing so again this month. A donation box is located within Newtown Community Center, at 8 Simpson Street. Those planning to attend Parks & Rec’s Halloween Spooktacular on October 26 are also asked to consider donating some candy. It is not a big request for families to do this ahead of taking their children to one of the busiest places in town each Halloween evening. To those who have already made donations this year, we thank you.

Word arrived last week that a community tag sale being organized for the approaching weekend by Newtown Hook & Ladder has been postponed to the spring. Organizers will have more details in the new year. Meanwhile, the town’s oldest fire company is already working on plans for its Second Annual Santa Deliveries. The new fundraiser introduced last year was very successful, and Hook & Ladder members are ready to go for round two, with Santa visiting local homes on his fire truck this holiday season. Additional information will be announced soon via Hook & Ladder’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. We know it isn’t Halloween yet, but this is what firefighters like to refer to as preplanning.

Success! It didn’t take very long at all for Marge Carmody to call in with a response to last week’s Way We Were call for help. Marge and her husband immediately recognized everyone in the photo shared by Shirley Ferris. Shirley only knew her sister Ginny was in the photo she shared for the paper. She was hoping someone else might be able to fill in the rest, and Marge did. Friday afternoon, Marge called in to tell us that the photo — which we’re sharing again this week, here — shows, from left, Holly Johnson, Ginny Cole, Sue Bawden, Sally Tomlinson, Richard Carmody, and Cynthia Eaton. All were members of the NHS Class of 1953. Thank you Marge for being the first, and to everyone else who reached out to help with the IDs in that photo. Chuck Botsford also called, in fact, and said he thought the photo was taken during the class’s senior picnic. A fellow member of the Class of 1953, Chuck said if the photo was in fact taken during the picnic, it would have been captured at Lake Quassapaug in Middlebury.

Pink is a popular color this month. It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Newtown High School teams wore special uniforms while competing and doing their part off the playing surfaces to raise money for breast cancer awareness and research.

Speaking of NHS, a reminder that the campus will be closed to the public for all activities throughout the day on Saturday, October 15, is in this week’s Education section, because that day is the 26th Annual Joseph P. Grasso Festival. Full details are on page B-five of this week’s print edition.

As of October 15, FirstLight will conduct a fall drawdown of Lake Zoar at the Stevenson Dam to conduct maintenance and inspection activities. The drawdown will lower lake levels to minimum pond levels and return to normal operating elevations on October 26. As of October 26, a drawdown at Lake Lillinonah will be conducted. All homeowners are encouraged to remove structures, boat lifts, and docks from Lake Zoar to prevent ice or flood damage from occurring during the winter months. All work planned to occur along the shoreline requires prior permitting from FirstLight, who can be contacted at lake.permits@firstlightpower.com.

Carla Becerra recently reached out to share that after her parents, longtime residents Phyllis and Charles Framularo, were highlighted in The Newtown Bee in July 2022 for celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, a long-time friend of her mother reached out after reading the article. “The magic continued as they decided to meet for dinner, my mom and her dear friend Betty who is now 88 years old and still gardening until dark! And still a Newtown resident as well!” Carla wrote. Later she said, “The Bee brings people together — there is no doubt! Look at these two friends back together again after decades of the daily living having found them not in touch for so many years! Thank you for the gift you gave my mom Phyllis and her dear friend Betty!” We wish you joy and a long rekindled friendship ladies!

And I can’t stop writing this week without wishing Southbury resident and longtime supporter of St Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church in Newtown Antoinette Capodicci congratulations on recently winning on Hulu’s “Best in Dough” premiere episode. We hope your star keeps rising.

You will win in my heart as long as you promise next week to ... Read me again.