Calling all sponsors, bowlers, and cheerleaders who care about our senior neighbors across Southern Rhode Island. You have an opportunity to support services that help our older citizens age-in-place in our wonderful South County. Southern Rhode Island Volunteers has been the agency supporting our seniors since 1981—NO ONE else can claim to have been providing free, meaningful service to seniors in our area for that long. Yes, we are in our 43rd year at SRIV, 4 decades of helping our seniors, our nonprofits, and our communities.

We welcome anyone 18 plus years of age wanting to volunteer and add purpose to some of your free time. We welcome our teens 13 to 17 to volunteer for some of our summer events, to help our seniors cleaning up their walkways in the fall and winter months or maybe gardening in the spring and summer months.

There are so many ways to help, not only our seniors but also our nonprofits—our wonderful community museums, arts, culture and life—like the amazing South County Museum in Narragansett, or help with beach or park clean ups like Wilcox Park, Westerly, Ninigret Park, Charlestown, or along any of our beautiful beaches, or help our seniors through supporting this event and other ways. Options include providing transportation to medical appointments, grocery stores, pharmacies, the bank, personal care locations such as the barber or salon and more; maybe you’d like to deliver Meals on Wheels, food from local grocery stores or pantries; or companionship may be what you are looking for—sharing life stories, board games, puzzles, conversations, college football and more; or you may want to help from the office by answering the calls from seniors needing help, by helping with online grocery orders that get delivered later in the week. There is so much! You can get to know SRIV and our wonderful team by attending this event as an introduction.

I’ve shared a flyer with this year’s date and info and it represents some of last year’s event supporters, Bentley Builders, Northup’s Service Center, South County Smiles and many more.

Other sponsors who are supporters of our seniors include The Village at Worden’s Pond, People’s Credit Union, Bank Newport, The Volunteers of Matunuck and Tuckertown Fire Departments, Gates Insurance, A B Hoxie Well & Pump, Stasiunas Construction Companies, The Coutu Family, Lise Iwon, Belmont Market, Washington Trust Bank, Fiore Realty, SKIBPO, and Old Mountain Lanes

On Sunday, October 22, 2023 Scarecrows for SK were at Saugatucket Park for some fall fun! SRIV was delighted to be invited to participate in this family fun event. Our team began with Victoria Vona and Deb Tanner our scarecrow creators. They built our “first volunteer” veteran scarecrow. His unique face and nose made him quite the handsome character!

Deb brought our buddy to the field on Sunday morning and Megan Corey from our office soon joined her. We enjoyed sharing our scarecrow with so many visitors and being a part of this fun community event.

News Flash—we have just been informed that our scarecrow won most Unique—thank you all so much for voting for him; we are kind-of fond of our scarecrow buddy! We hope he encourages some of you to join our volunteer team.

Mark your calendars—Applumpkin Fall Festival at Ninigret Park Saturday, September 9, 2023 is almost here.  Gates open at 9:45 am; festival begins at 10 am. Affordable Family Fun, featuring food trucks, craft/artisan vendors, games, including scarecrow ring toss, football pumpkin toss, corn hole, bowling, and so much more; activities throughout the day, contests too, --so much packed into the day! 

The Applumpkin Children’s Costume Contest at 11 am is on the festival grounds by the SRIV raffle tent.  Age groups are newborn to 4, 5-8, and 9-12 with prizes for costumes --most silly or scary; most creative/unique; and most fall, apple or pumpkin themed.  Participants must be in costume.  Winners will receive a “golden ticket” for prize choice.

Applumpkin Fall Festival is sponsored by South County Tourism, A B Hoxie Well & Pump, Chariho Furniture, Belmont Market, Stasiunas Construction and The Fantastic Umbrella Factory & Small Axe Café. Please thank these generous local business owners for their community support and support them for your individual goods and services.   Other generous supporters include McLaughlin & Moran, Sunset Farms, Shoreline Sanitation, Narragansett Rubbish Removal, Rippy’s, and many others. 

Applumpkin will feature a storyteller reading throughout the day.  Early on stop by to hear from children’s books and as the day starts to wind down, Harriet will read from her novels for the mature visitors who enjoy historical fiction and mysteries.  One of the children’s authors whose books will be read is Tish Rabe, a renowned and celebrated author of children’s books. Tish is a local, official Dr. Seuss author, as well as author of many of her own books.  Her stories will be read, her books will be given away and some will be available for purchase.  Our storyteller is Harriet Grayson, author, producer & host of Community Culture Showcase.  Harriet writes novels based upon family experiences, fun and interesting reading.  During Harriet’s free time, she and her husband are SRIV volunteers!

Corn Hole competitors come check out The Applumpkin Corn Hole Knockout Contest at 3:45 pm.  Register throughout the day at the pop-up tent by the corn hole boards, contest begins at 3:45 for adults only as this is a 50/50 knockout contest. 

Food trucks with a wide varied of menus will be on site throughout the festival.  Burgers, BBQ, Chicken Fingers, Hot dogs, Lobster rolls, Chicken salad, Mac & Cheese, Oysters, Pizza, Ice Cream, Milk Shakes, Slushies, Shaved Ice, Coffee, Tea, and more! 

Applumpkin Fall Festival will feature demonstrations and mini shows throughout the day including East Coast Karate’s Demo Team at 3 pm, a balloon maker 3-7 pm, and artistic face painter 3-7 pm and more.  Don’t miss the Antique Tractor Parades throughout the day as well!

Games and activities for children and families from 10 am to 7 pm include Scarecrow Ring Toss, Football Pumpkin Toss, a family Photo Booth, bowling, pumpkin painting, ladder ball, putting green, Giant Jenga, a coloring table, and more. Sign up for the coloring contests for children in the morning and afternoon, costume contest for children, and corn hole knockout contest for adults.  Watch for the antique tractors, karate demo and more.

Visit our vendors for some shopping fun and grab a gift for a loved one or yourself.  While you walk around or with lunch, enjoy a cold beer or wine from our beer & wine booth, or a non-alcoholic beverage from one of our food trucks.  Don’t forget to enjoy the wonderful food offerings throughout the day from our food trucks—have lunch and dinner with us at the Applumpkin Fall Festival.  Of course, you’ll want to enjoy the games and activities throughout the day.  Plan to enter one or more of our contests.  Take a chance on our 50/50 cash raffle or purchase tickets for our basket raffle featuring 15 baskets valued at $100 to $600.  The drawings will take place at the end of the day.  You’ll find something for everyone in the family!

We are in the planning stages for SRIV’s annual bowling event. Named for Edna Bernier an extraordinary volunteer, well into her 90’s. Edna certainly left her mark on all those who knew her, volunteered with her and benefitted from her caring and giving way!

This year our event will feature a raffle with 15 themed baskets highlighting adventures and things to do in our beautiful region of the world! We will be posting information on our Face Book page closer to the event about these great raffle prizes.

Bowling of course is happening. But without thanking our event and lane sponsors who return each year to support our senior services the bowling could not take place. So first and foremost—thank you to all our sponsors, our main event sponsors Stedman & Company and Northup’s Service Center; then our amazing lane sponsors South County Smiles, Bentley Builders, A B Hoxie Well and Pump, Tuckertown Volunteer Fire Department, Matunuck Volunteer Fire Department, The Washington Trust Company, People’s Credit Union, Stasuinas Construction Companies, The Amazing Coutu Family, Fiore Realty Company, Village at Worden’s Pond, Ri Grows, Lise Iwon, Tom Ford Law, Stone Cove Marina, Daniel Carter Law and Finan Law. Of course, a huge thank you to Old Mountain Lanes for our location and Belmont Market for the food provided for our attendees—you all ROCK! Wishing you years of success!

Bowling will take place from 10 am to 1 pm. For those who are not on a business sponsored team, you can still come and bowl with us for $25. You will receive the shoe rental, bowling from 10 to 1, our food offerings, and you’ll be supporting our seniors.

Bowling on a sponsored team—you are entitled to enter our bowler pledge drawings. If you gather pledges to support our seniors that total $50 or more, you will have multiple chances to win gift cards throughout the bowling hours of 10 am to 1 pm. All you need to do is grab one of the pledge forms that will be mailed to your business sponsor and gather those pledges to support senior citizen nutrition. The top pledge gatherer will win an awesome prize!

Spectators are welcome to purchase raffle tickets between 8:30 am and 1 pm. Drawings are 1:15 pm. You are also welcome to cheer on our bowlers—great people coming out to support our senior citizen neighbors’ independence, healthy aging, and basic needs!

Keep posted for flyers and more information over the next few months. If you have any questions on how to sponsor a lane, how to get involved or are interested in the mission of service for senior citizens contact us today at 401-552-7661.