Come to the December gathering of the Franklin County Alumni Club for our annual holiday party and “White Elephant” gift exchange!  It’s always a great time as treasures change hands many times, while everyone competes for the perfect gift. Mark your calendar for Wednesday, December 11, at 6:00 pm for a festive evening. 

The party will be at the Longaberger Alumni House at 2200 Olentangy River Road. Dinner and desserts will be served.  Don’t forget to bring a wrapped gift to participate in the gift exchange!  It can be something funny or cute that you find in your house, or something holiday- or Buckeye-related — no need to spend a lot of money. 
RSVP by sending an email (include your name and phone number, and how many people are coming) to OSUAlumniFranklinCounty@yahoo.com. There is no charge to attend, but we must have a firm headcount for dinner. 

Deadline to RSVP is Friday Dec 6.  Questions?  Contact Leyla at 614-893-0559 or email above address.

Get ready to join us for our most important task we do each year – reviewing scholarship applications to select our 2025 recipient!  In February our Scholarship Chair Frank Stoy, will need 12-15 people to volunteer to review applications and rank the candidates. 

From a field of over 150 last year, we chose a handful of the best to interview, then selected a winner.  You will be so impressed with the quality of the candidates among these local high school seniors. The time commitment involved is approximately 2 weeks in mid-February.  You’ll be sent a list of applications, and will have a few weeks to review and “score” or rank the applicants, and a deadline to turn in your ranking list. To volunteer or if you have questions, please contact Frank at 419-386-6511 or frankstoy1@gmail.com.

Monday, January 20, 2025 is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – a day to honor the incredible legacy that Dr. King left on the world.  On this holiday, Pay It Forward, a student organization within the Office of Student Life dedicated to service, organizes a MLK Jr. Day of Service each year for Ohio State students.

Students will participate in 2-3 hours of community service with a local nonprofit in a variety of community issues, such as homeless citizen support, mental health advocacy, healthy food access, child welfare, and support for our frontline workers.

Our Alumni Club, in collaboration with the OSU Retirees Association, will join over 500 students in this community service effort.  We will likely be assigned to work at the Ohio Union in some sort of support role to the students. Details will be coming soon.

Questions: Please contact Marianne Wenger at mwenger1101@gmail.com.

Come watch the national champion OSU Women’s Ice Hockey team in action with us on Saturday, January 25!  They are currently ranked #2 and will be playing against another powerhouse team, Minnesota State, that afternoon.

Our block of tickets are available now.  Tickets are only $9 each!  Last year’s game was sold out.

The game starts at 3 pm, so we will organize a pre-game lunch at 1 pm at The O on Lane, a family-friendly pub just a short walk from the Ice Rink.  Bring the whole family!  

Special thanks to The Celly Club, the women’s hockey booster club, for their assistance in promoting and organizing this event.  Questions?  Email us at OSUAlumniFranklinCounty@yahoo.com or call Leyla at 614-893-0559.

Here’s a great Holiday gift idea — Get the whole family tickets to join us for our annual gathering to watch the Top 15 ranked OSU Women’s Basketball team!  Our Franklin County Alumni Club has a block of Club Level mid-court seats to the Lady Buckeyes’ last weekend home game this season vs. Purdue, on Sunday, February 23, at 12 Noon. 

Tickets are just $13 each for this exciting BigTen match-up, so bring the whole family!  

You can order HERE or send a check (made payable to Franklin County OSU Alumni) to Leyla Hawkins, 1149 Tillicum Drive, Worthington, OH 43085.  If you send a check, be sure to include your phone number and email address so we can send you a confirmation and your tickets.

We are welcoming our fellow alumni from the OSU Black Alumni Society to join us for this game.  We will meet pre-game for our usual “Tailgate” party in the Huntington Club (2nd level of the Schottenstein Center). 

Questions?  Call Leyla at 614-893-0559 or email us at  OSUAlumniFranklinCounty@yahoo.com.

January is a great time to stay indoors and curl up with a good book!  Our annual Book Club reading will begin in January, and we’re co-hosting again with the Asian & Pacific Islanders OSU Alumni Society. This partnership offers us a chance to learn about another culture, and after reading, we will gather for dinner and discussion.

Full description of the book:

A sweeping, evocative debut novel following three generations of Vietnamese American women reeling from the death of their matriarch, revealing the family’s inherited burdens, buried secrets, and unlikely love stories. 

When Ann Tran gets the call that her fiercely beloved grandmother, Minh, has passed away, her life is already at a crossroads. In the years since she’s last seen Minh, Ann has built a seemingly perfect life—a beautiful lake house, a charming professor boyfriend, and invites to elegant parties that bubble over with champagne and good taste—but it all crumbles with one positive pregnancy test. With both her relationship and carefully planned future now in question, Ann returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother, Huơng.

Back in Florida, Huơng is simultaneously mourning her mother and resenting her for having the relationship with Ann that she never did. Then Ann and Huơng learn that Minh has left them both the Banyan House, the crumbling old manor that was Ann’s childhood home, in all its strange, Gothic glory. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past and their uncertain futures, while trying to rebuild their relationship without the one person who’s always held them together.

Running parallel to this is Minh’s story, as she goes from a lovestruck teenager living in the shadow of the Vietnam War to a determined young mother immigrating to America in search of a better life for her children. And when Ann makes a shocking discovery in the Banyan House’s attic, long-buried secrets come to light as it becomes clear how decisions Minh made in her youth affected the rest of her life—and beyond.

Spanning decades and continents, from 1960s Vietnam to the wild swamplands of the Florida coast, Banyan Moon is a stunning and deeply moving story of mothers and daughters, the things we inherit, and the lives we choose to make out of that inheritance.

Thursday November 7, we’re doing a fun project for a good cause!

Come help us make Buckeye necklaces for patients at OSU Hospitals.  We will provide all the materials (buckeyes, beads, strings, etc).  You get to string them together and make someone happy!  We will meet at the Longaberger Alumni House at 6 pm on November 7, and spend an hour putting these little treasures together.  Then we’ll treat you out for dinner afterwards!

If you have questions or are able to join us, please contact Marianne Wenger at mwenger1101@gmail.com or 614-582-0854.  Give her your phone number and email address (so we can send you a reminder a few days before the event).  We just need to know how many people to plan for.  

Thanks for helping us making fellow Buckeyes smile!

Our community service project this fall is in support of the Columbus chapter of Blue Star Military Mothers of America, an organization that supports our service men and women who are currently stationed overseas.  The local chapter, known as Buckeye Military Moms, packs and ships care packages of the items most requested by our soldiers and sailors. 

We are collecting for their holiday packages which ship in November, so during September and October, please consider donating the listed items to our collection.  You can drop off your donation at any of these club events:

     Club meetings on September 11 and October 9 (6 pm, Alumni House)
     Our “Picnic with the Police” event on September 25
     The “Wine Bistro Dinner” events on October 2 and 16

All donations must be received by the end of October to make it in time for the November packaging day (timed to be shipped and received before the holidays).  If you cannot attend one of the above events, or have questions about the program, please contact Marianne Wenger, mwenger1101@gmail.com  to make alternative arrangements for delivery.  Items can also be shipped to her at 981 Village Brook Way, Columbus 43235 but need to be received by Oct 31.

Requested items (no glass containers):

·        Travel size shampoo, conditioner, lotion, body wash, mouth wash, lip balm

·        Baby wipes – 40-52 ct.

·        Tuna pouches and cans of Vienna sausages

·        Cans of meat ravioli or spaghetti with meatballs

·        Small jars of peanut butter or Nutella

·        Individual fruit servings

·        Small packets of ramen noodles or cups of instant mac and cheese

·        Protein bars, Clif Bars, or granola bars

·        Small size snacks such as Pringles, peanut butter crackers, nuts, trail mix, or dried fruit

·        Individual drink mix packets

·        Gum

·        Microfiber cloths (shop/hand towel size)

·        Letters of Support – ask for guidelines for writing to the deployed

You can learn more about the local chapter and national organization here:  www.buckeyemilitarymoms.org;   

www.bluestarmothers.org.  Thank you for supporting our community service projects!

Come help us “Serve Those Who Serve! Wednesday, OCTOBER 30 , our alumni club will show appreciation for the OSU Police and Public Safety Dept. by serving lunch for all the officers as well as their administrative staff. This event has been extremely popular the past few years, and the police department is grateful to have us back again. We’ll be grilling and serving a “Tailgate” style lunch, so we need a few folks to help set it up, and a few to clean up after.  We also need a couple of grill masters. Join us for this great opportunity to give back to those who serve and protect the students and staff of our great campus! 

Sign up to participate by emailing us at OSUAlumniFranklinCounty@yahoo.com with your name, phone # and email address, and which shift you’re available for. 

Come help us say “Thank You!” to these hard-working individuals!