Miss-Lou residents rang in the New Year last week with a variety of celebrations and family events.

The end of 2013 and beginning of 2014 brought along good news throughout our community:

• Phoenix Raine Morace and Dayton Davis Jr. were the first babies of the New Year in the Miss-Lou and arrived just one minute apart Thursday. We welcome our area’s newest residents into the community with open arms.

• Brody BeQuette is quickly becoming the most popular 4-year-old in the Miss-Lou as residents are rallying around the boy who was recently diagnosed with neuroblastoma. Various fundraisers and blood drives have been hosted already, but a charitable concert scheduled for Jan. 18 will be the biggest so far. We hope residents do whatever they can to help this brave boy beat such a devastating disease.

• Rodney native Ann Gabrielle Richardson is hoping to raise enough money through a crowd funding website to pay for a trip to Germany to enroll in the International Performing Arts Institute, which hosts a three-and-a-half-week program for rising opera singers. We wish Richardson well and hope she reaches her goal of performing music professionally.

• Manfred Carr enjoys volunteering his time at the Guardian Collection Thrift Store mainly because of the variety of people he meets and greets behind the counter of the store, which raises funds for Catholic Charities. The Vermont native has been working at the store for 13 years and has no plans of leaving anytime soon. Volunteers such as Carr are one way non-profit organizations are able to keep their doors open, and we thank him for his service.

Don’t let the cold weather stop you from doing great things this week in the Miss-Lou.