Last week I talked about spring cleaning and opportunities to help Newtown High School Band & Guard and Newtown Historical Society with two approaching fundraisers. Each organization is planning tag sales, and the opportunity for readers to donate items toward the fundraisers. You know what else screams “spring” to me? Fresh ice cream! Holy Cow Ice Cream Shop, Shortt’s Farm and Ice Cream, and Dolce Italian Ice & Gelato have all opened for the season. The opening date for Ferris Acres Creamery’s 2025 season has been announced — Tuesday, May 6 — and that means not only the return of visits to 144 Sugar Street for ice cream and watching the cows cross the road, for many families it also means it’s time to cash in those Birthday Cake coupons they’ve been hanging onto since the closing of the Creamery at the end of the 2024 season.

If you’d like to enter your child or grandchild in the weekly raffle, all you need to do is send a photo — head and shoulders photos are best — to shannon@thebee.com, along with the child’s name, their birthday, and the age they will be turning, at least a week before their birthday. Deadline for each week’s Birthday Cake column is noon Tuesday. Each week we pick one child’s name to win a coupon for a basic chocolate-vanilla ice cream cake from the Creamery. No further commitment. It’s that easy. Just ask Anna Zenga, the now-11-year-old who won last week’s coupon. Mom sent a photo, and Anna gets the coupon. Boom.

It seems I not only have a local couple to offer a Good Egg Award to this week, but these are two people who are positive trend-setters! While Lose The Litter Chair Gordon Williams was taking some last-minute registrations ahead of last weekend’s annual Newtown Lions Club roadside cleanup effort, he heard from Kirk and Judy Blanchard, who volunteered to clean up Plumtrees Road again this year. “The Blanchards have been steadfast in supporting Lose the Litter,” Gordon said. In response to a question from Gordon, Kirk said he and Judy have been doing their own roadside cleanup since moving into town in 1983. This means the Blanchards were trying to lose the litter from local roadsides for nearly a decade before the program’s formal launch in 1993. Kirk reportedly told Gordon that part of their motivation is their road is one of the gateways into town. “Approaching Newtown free of litter certainly helps create a positive mindset,” Kirk told Gordon, before thanking him and the Lions for doing what they could to get people involved. I offer my thanks to Kirk and Judy Blanchard. You two are very Good Eggs!

Gordon was additionally pleased with the Lose The Litter efforts last weekend. Despite Saturday’s cold, wet weather, he had four more groups register this year than last year to help with the cleanup efforts. Among the newcomers on April 26 was a Girl Scout troop, he mentioned. Thank you ladies!

Newtown VNA has been doing so well with recent sales through its thrift shop that the local organization has been able to make some very special donations. In addition to a $1,000 donation in early April to Newtown Parks & Rec to be used toward summer camp (see this week’s print edition Health page), donations of $500 each were given to Newtown High School’s Unified Sports program and the NHS Best Buddies program. Further, VNA Vice President Joan Reynolds said one generous resident then “stepped up and matched our donations! It was a first for us.”

The VNA raised its funds through sales of items found at The VNA Thrift Shop, which is open only three hours a week! “People are so generous with their donations to the store,” Joan shared of the store accessed from the lower rear parking lot of Edmond Town Hall. Its current hours are 9 am-noon each Saturday. “Between wonderful and generous donations, and our shoppers, we’ve been doing very well,” she added. The thrift shop has been operating for more than 85 years. It is the VNA chapter’s longest annual fundraising effort. Funds raised help build scholarships, and provide the opportunity for the local chapter “to respond to special requests and circumstances,” Reynolds told The Newtown Bee earlier this year. The latest provision of the VNA Thrift Shop is a monthly donation to a local community organization. Proceeds from one weekend each month are donated to nonprofits, often averaging a few hundred dollars. This month’s beneficiary will be Thrive Cooperative Center for Wellness. The Trumbull nonprofit that helps anyone affected by cancer — patients, caregivers, family and friends — will receive the proceeds from all sales of May 10.

Later this month the VNA will have another special event. An Outdoor Tag Sale is being planned for Saturday, May 24, from 10 am until 2 pm. Proceeds will continue to support the VNA and its mission to help others in myriad ways. If you’d like to offer items for their sale — any time of the year, actually, not just ahead of this special event — a permanent collection bin is available just outside the store’s entrance. The store offers new and gently used in-season clothing, jewelry, and small household goods including decorative items, so if you have something you’d like to offer, the VNA would be grateful. In addition to the bin at 45 Main Street, permanent containers designated for the Newtown VNA are also available at the transfer station on Ethan Allen Road. These are just inside the gates at the top of the hill.

When you’re around town this weekend, Lions Club members will be selling Great Pootatuck Duck Race tickets. Readers can find club members on Friday, May 2, from 5 to 7 pm, at Hawleyville Wine and Liquors, 23 Barnabas Road, and Yankee Wine & Spirits, within Queen Street Shopping Center, 6 Queen Street; and then Saturday morning from 8 am until noon at Dunkin’ Donuts, also within Queen Street Shopping Center. Tickets are $10 and race day is May 31 in Sandy Hook Center.

A few weeks ago I devoted a whole segment of this column to pretzels. Bruce the Spruce was sporting a pretzel outfit ahead of National Pretzel Day on April 26, as well as the month-long observance of Soft Pretzel Month. As mentioned then, if you look hard enough, you’ll find every day is a celebration or observance of something. Here’s more proof of that thinking: according to an email that arrived late last week, tomorrow is World Naked Gardening Day. Twenty years ago this year it was decided that the first Saturday in May would be the day to show off your green thumb… and everything else. The observation was reportedly started to foster acceptance of one’s own and everyone else’s bodies.

The country’s 500 biggest cities were analyzed by LawnStarter, who used nudist populations, public nudity laws, Google search interest, and even the forecast for May 3 to create this year’s list. The Constitution State did not rank in the top five of this study. Hartford ranked at #25 this year, however. It is the only city within New England, and the northernmost city in the country, to make this year’s listings.

I hope you do something that makes you happy this weekend. Before you know it, it’ll be time to come back and … read me again.