For nearly 20 years, the Crooked Creek Community Association (CCCA) has been active in the neighborhood along the north shore of Lake Sinclair.
After living in the area for only four years with his wife, Sandra, Don Jones has been the recently installed CCCA president since the previous longtime president had to withdraw due to health reasons.
“She had been doing a fine job, but unfortunately, she wasn’t able to continue, and they were looking for a new president,” Jones explained. “And to be honest, it wasn’t like I had to run some kind of a campaign or anything. It was more like one of those things of raising your hand and saying, ‘Yeah, okay, I’ll do it.’”
Regardless, Jones has focused now on raising the group’s profile not only within the immediate Crooked Creek area but within Putnam County.
One of the first things he orchestrated was replacing an old, tired-looking sign in front of CCCA headquarters near the marina and fire station at 160A Crooked Creek Dr., with a bright, new, blue-and-white sign declaring CCCA as “Caring for the Community.”
There’s also a spruced-up CCCA signboard stationed at the corner of Crooked Creek and Scuffleboro Roads to announce meetings, building rental information, programs, or other brief messages to local residents.
“We hope the new and refurbished signs suggest a degree of growth, rejuvenation, and increased recognition of CCCA,” Jones said. “We have the nucleus of a strong and beneficial organization for our community in the form of engaging speakers and potential new programs such as fitness classes.
“And we have the opportunity to provide greater assistance to charitable organizations in our community,” he added. “The strength of an organization is built upon the energy and commitment of its members.”
The beneficiary of that effort will primarily be Putnam Christian Outreach, which operates a popular thrift store at 151 Industrial Blvd. in Eatonton, but also provides a wide variety of services to residents in need, such as clothing, food, utilities, and prescription medicine assistance, a gas allowance for medical transport, and local disaster relief when needed.
Jones said the CCCA will be holding various events to help fund PCO’s efforts, but also to simply sustain the organization so it can remain effective in helping the Crooked Creek community to thrive.
“Our primary source of revenue has been a yard sale that we do at the end of June, and we will do that again this year,” he confirmed. “But I’m hoping to expand that yard sale by offering some raffles, some silent auction items, and to increase the revenue that we derive from that particular event, and then to do some other things for the organization that will be beneficial to the members. One of the things is we’ve started to promote a fitness program for members of the organization.”
Jones mentioned that the CCCA will host an AARP speaker this Monday evening, May 5, speaking about decluttering and downsizing at home, “which impacts a lot of the members in our organization,” he pointed out. “And AARP has speakers on various subjects that I think will appeal to our group, so perhaps we can expand that, too.”
Regularly scheduled Bingo nights might be a possibility as well.
“If our membership agrees, we could do it at our building,” Jones said. “I think we have plenty of people in the area that may very well be interested in participating, and doing it would be a revenue generator. And again, it’s not just for the organization, and it’s revenue that gives us the opportunity to give back to more people and more charities. So, that’s kind of in a nutshell what my thoughts are about right now, I’m hoping to increase our membership, and I’m hoping to increase our visibility within the community.”
Jones sees CCCA serving not only as a local advocacy group, a social club, and a force for good and charitable works, but also as an encouraging force to promote healthy living among its members.
“I’m active, I teach a spin class at BodyPlex in Milledgeville,” the retired businessman said. “And my wife is the same way. She just started a Walk-and-Talk for our group and invited people to come to the CCCA building at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesdays just to walk and talk. So, I’m hopeful that we can shake things up a little bit and get more people involved in doing more active things while we help others, too.”