Recent Blog Posts

With the new year come many exciting new developments for DAR! As many of you may recall me reporting to you after the October Board, the decision was made to begin accepting Y-DNA as supporting evidence for DAR applications and supplementals starting in 2014. I am so pleased that this...

As we leave 2013 and enter a new year, we find ourselves reflecting on our many accomplishments over the past 12 months and setting goals for the next year. We made incredible achievements in DAR over the past year, including doubling our Celebrate America! goal and reaching 2 million hours...

As I was decorating our Christmas tree at the ranch this week, it was fun to reflect on our family ornaments, many of which were made by our children. Even though our tree will never win a decorating contest, all our ornaments are family friendly and inexpensive. It’s a good...

As Christmas approaches, I’d love to share with you some of the photographs of the Christmas Open House held the first week of December. This year we welcomed about 750 to our buildings and quite a few were returning visitors. The Property Beautification and Hospitality Committee members decorate inside and...

Recently, we received a blog comment from the Caroline Close Stuart Chapter in Lake St. Louis, Missouri, telling us about what they have done during their first year as a chapter. I was very interested in hearing more about how this chapter came together and began to establish themselves in...

I was overjoyed to learn on Saturday morning that we had reached our goal of 1 million hours of community service work as part of the Celebrate America! initiative! Congratulations on meeting this goal and thank you for contributing your spare time to help in your local communities. I am...

As always we had another busy Executive Board Week at Headquarters. We covered a lot of important business and we also were able to participate in some wonderful events. I will tell you in more detail about some of the activities of the week later on, but I wanted to...

I am thrilled to see the progress members are making with their Celebrate America! service hours and to see the impact this service has on local communities. Every time I check the ticker on the Members’ Website or e-Membership the number just keeps going up! In the 7 weeks we...

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love planning and cooking the meal and having friends and family with whom to share it. Typically we spend the holidays at the ranch where we have a large kitchen and room for a crowd. I enjoy baking bread, pies, turkey and all the...

Although it is not yet Thanksgiving and we are quite a few weeks away from Christmas, our wonderful Property Beautification and Hospitality committee has begun decorating DAR Headquarters for Christmas and the Open House. This year the DAR Christmas Open House is being held December 4 from 5:30-8 PM, I...