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Welcome Club Brings Lasting Friendships

Sarah Puerini knows first-hand what the Welcome Club of Fairfield/Easton means to people just coming to town. The mother of three is the group's acting president now. But just a few years ago, she was in their shoes, arriving in a town she knew little about with no friends nearby.

"I had just moved to the area ... and I didn't know anybody," she says. "I was itching to get out of the house."

Sarah and her family came to Fairfield from New Jersey five years ago. They had heard the town was a nice place to live, and they figured it made sense as a middle ground between her husband's job in New York City and her family in Rhode Island. But after giving birth to her first daughter that December, she felt the need to get out and meet people. That's where the Welcome Club came in.

Now more than 60 years old, the Welcome Club finds ways peoplenew to the area, or just looking to get out more, can meet. The Welcome Club organizes open houses and mixers, where its members form book clubs, playgroups, poker and Bunco nights, and more. Most of the groups are composed of young mothers like Sarah, but anyone can join. Sarah said the playgroup she formed when she was a newbie still gets together every week. "We've been friends ever since," Sarah says.

Sarah first served as the club's president for 2008-2009. And even though she now has a set of 9-month-old twins to contend with along with her "four-and-three-quarter"-year-old, she recently stepped up again when the group had trouble finding another president. While it means "working around naptimes," Sarah says she doesn't mind.

"Because I got so much out of the group, I really love to be able to give back," she says. "I don't know where I would be without it, because it's how I made all my true friends in the area."

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