2017 Ms. Goodfellows Award

Chatham Goodfellows Board members Rose Peseski, Scott Williston, Tim Haskell and Tim Mifflin present the 2017 Ms .Goodfellows award to Connie Mardling.

Each year the Chatham Goodfellows Board of Directors Executive Committee has to make the difficult decision of choosing the Mr. /Mrs. Goodfellow. It is a decision that is not taken lightly.  The Chatham Goodfellows Executive Committee is guided by the simple code that is printed every year in the Chatham Goodfellows newspaper.

The final stanza of the code accurately describes the recipients for 2017;  “the Goodfellows’ Code is writ: The best of life and the worth of it, is not how much can I get for me, but what I have done to be neighbourly”.

Our 2017 recipient began volunteering with Chatham Goodfellows as a youngster working on the porchlight campaign.  The recipient’s involvement continued to evolve to include volunteering with street sales and food delivery.  Our recipient was always striving to increase donations on porchlight and street sales each year.  Once the recipient entered the workforce, vacation days were always booked around the Chatham Goodfellows key dates. Once our recipient was old enough to drive, mom and dad’s vehicle was used to deliver toys and food.

25 years later our recipient continues to volunteer in all aspects of Chatham Goodfellows. Our recipient is one of the first volunteers to arrive for toy packing and one of the first to deliver toys.  The recipient is a mainstay for porchlight and street sales canvassing.  The recipient is always cheerful, bright and full of Christmas spirit.

The food packing and delivery directors rely on our recipient to lead the way packing small boxes.  Our recipient delivers at least 100 boxes of food each year.

The recipient for this year is a valued member of Chatham Goodfellows.  The Board recognizes that our recipient is like many Chatham Goodfellows, she chooses to be unpretentious, wishing not to seek the “limelight”.  It is important to the Board to demonstrate our profound gratitude to our recipient for her undying work and support to Chatham Goodfellows to  ‘Ensure No Child Without a Christmas”.

Chatham Goodfellows Board would like to bestow our appreciation by honouring Connie Mardling as Ms. Goodfellow 2017.