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January 2024

Letter from the Incoming President: Beginning Our ‘Lagniappe’ Year

Warm greetings to all my fellow Villagers!

At the start of our new fiscal year and the installment of our new Board of Directors for the coming year, I would like to reflect on where we have been and where we're going.

There is no question that we have built a wonderful community in Pasadena Village. It enriches each of our lives and establishes an example for others of what can be done to alleviate many of the problems of our increasingly large aging population in this country.

As one of currently 270 U.S. Villages operating or starting up, we have a significant role to play.

We have built an organization that most of our new members tell us is one of the most welcoming, vibrant and diverse environments, with a real spirit of neighborliness, that they have ever encountered. And this happened during a rapid period of substantial growth, going from approximately 130 members to more than 200.

Our board has just completed a retreat where we celebrated our recent achievements and looked forward to what we need and want to do in the coming years. We also completed a self-evaluation of how we operated over the last year. These events revealed what a thoughtful and thorough team we have, with a real feeling of energy and anticipation for how we might be able to make improvements in the coming year.

As your new president, I want to declare this 2024–25 year to be the “lagniappe” year. Lagniappe is a word in common use in southern Louisiana, the state I come from. Originating in Quechua, the language of the Incas, it migrated into Spanish and then into the French-based Cajun language, and it means “a little bit more.” I first learned it as the little bit more that your hostess would add to a full plate when serving you at a party.

For us as Villagers, we should each think about what “little bit more” we can contribute to the operations of the Village. When everyone contributes just a little bit more than what is expected, it creates and maintains an exceptional community, and that is what we want to continue doing. We are exceptional because so many people have given so much of their lives to making it so. I’ve thought many times that the best thing you can do in life is to do something good for someone else, which in turn is a reward to yourself.

Our responsibility as Villagers is to continue that tradition, to make this community available to others in this area where we live, and to serve as an example to others who are just beginning this journey.

We will face many challenges this year but with the energy and commitment of the board and the contribution of the efforts of all the members of our community, we will overcome those challenges and bequeath an improved Pasadena Village to our successors in following years. I am looking forward with enthusiasm to being part of this effort and anticipate a great year.