The 40+ Singles club has been around a long time. Here is a report on the club's history by one of the founding members.
About 17 years ago, Pat Fickeison, a widow, put a notice in the bulletin after checking with the Parish Council rep (Paul Klein) to make sure it was okay to do so. About 10 people (actually more guys than women) came to the first meeting. Joe Korte, Francis Kailen (who later met Dolores at the meeting and they got married), Paul Coletti (his wife had died recently, another guy named Joe, Chaty Adams, Pat McCabe (who died about 4 years later) and a couple more women came.
We decided right then that we needed a purpose for meeting, and I suggested I-Help. We've done I-Help ever since. The first time it was to bring the meal to a church in Monterey, since St. Angela's parish council hadn't approved of having it at our church yet. But after that first month we've always had it at St. Angela's Parish Hall.
I think our early attendance was about 10-12 people. And we got some other guys coming; one even had us at his apartment for a party on the 4th and to watch the fireworks over the bay from deck. At first, we didn't really do much social. When Vicky joined she helped by suggesting activities. A few of us started going out after Sunday night mass with Leroy and Norma, Toni and Earnastine Lee, and Pat Fickeison who had established that dinner-after-Mass routine several years earlier.
I didn't go very often for the first two or three years. We started the Christmas party tradition early on, and have generally done stuff on holidays, and we used to go to a movie together once in a while and sometimes we went on hikes. Early on we started the Shorove Tuesday pancake dinner. It was first at Maureen Keaney's apartment, who lived across from Lovers Point. She was so good about having people over to watch Feast of Lanterns, the bike and car races, etc. She moved to Carmel and we hardly see her any more.
We've had one bake sale after Mass years ago--it's our only money raiser ever. It seems about the time that Lorraine, Pat Nickerson, and then Mary Tuinenga joined the group got more active and that's really been a plus. Mary is so good about planning activities and getting other people to help.
So I'm the last of the original members that still lives here in the area and comes to the regular meetings.
Pat Clarke