(4-26-26) The Twenty First Century Club met on March 24, 2026 at Rockford United Methodist Church Café Room.  President Twyla Hayes welcomed everyone and called the meeting to order, sharing that March is National Reading Month. Twyla mentioned that Heritage Ohio is sponsoring Murals across Ohio. The website to check this out is MuralsofOhio.com. Rockford’s mural is one of 280 shown! 

Members answered roll-call by sharing their thoughts on where they might go if they could go back in time.  Three guests were welcomed: Janice Coburn; Elaine Fritzinger and Nancy Allen. 

Minutes from the meeting in February were read by and approved as was the treasurer’s report. 

Members may continue to bring small jars of peanut butter for Helping Hands Food Pantry in Rockford. 

Our program theme “Time flies when you are . . . .”  was presented first by Marina Lejeune. She and 9 others formed the Celina Tree Project in October 2025.  Celina has had many street projects where trees have been removed on tree lawns. A tree lawn is a grassy strip of land located within the public right-of-way between the curb and the sidewalk. The committee is asking homeowners to plant a tree on this tree lawn. She shared before & after pictures. Several reasons, for this removal of trees, include: disease; tornadoes; and street construction with utility rules. Benefits are reducing storm water runoff, and cooling buildings (20-45 degrees). To date, 14 trees have been planted.  Contact the City of Celina to help – there is a website available or forms at the Mercer County Library. Another love of Marina’s is discovering cocoons and the beautiful moths they produce. She enjoys photographing these beauties.

Next, Sydney Anderson presented about her “serial hobbies”. Decorating her home is one. Some tips she shared: a home should tell your story, use color/texture/pattern, make sure space is livable and mix and match design styles. Flower arranging is another– she gathered flowers from neighbors and designed her wedding bouquet. Another hobby is hosting parties or gatherings. Her tips include: picking a theme; narrowing down your guest list; pre-plan the menu, and planning plenty of food and drink. Her final hobby is junk journaling as she calls it. She journals everything from vacations to events and keeps receipts, plane and excursion tickets, stickers, business cards and postcards along with photographs and binds them together like scrapbooking.

Barb Bowen gave the final presentation. She is part of the Kingdom Harvest Ministries’ volunteer program or KHM. It is privately funded and non-denominational. Parkway has approximately 25 volunteers who either walk or teach. Other area churches that participate in this ministry are Celina, St. Marys & Wapakoneta. The Parkway area churches came together in 2019 and requested their program be accessed by the school.  It was approved and  KHM was born with 69 students in grades 5th – 8th with 7 HS students receiving credit. Now in 2026, there are 227 students. Walkers have a minimum 5 minutes of walk time each way which includes checking in students. Teachers have approximately 30 minutes for lesson time before the walk back to the school.  Barb was happy to report that 6 students recently gave their lives to Christ. 

Hostesses Val Fritzinger and Donna Bates served cracker mix, cinnamon dessert & water. 

Our next club meeting will be Tuesday, April 28 @ 7 p.m. in the home of Susan Coburn.  The program presenters will be Susan Coburn, Donna Bates, and Ann Gage with Susan Coburn and Kim Carr as hostesses.