There Is Always Room at our Table

by Geoff Lang, President, Port Ludlow Village Council

Happy New Year! As the Holidays begin to fade into the background and we welcome the slowly lengthening days, I am remembering the warmth and graciousness of our Thanksgiving. We were invited to our dear friend's home for dinner who, when hearing we had family in town, extended the invitation saying, “There is always room at our table!” We had a wonderful meal, engaging conversation, and camaraderie with their friends and neighbors that can only be found when a group of neighbors chooses to become a Community.

Your Port Ludlow Village Council is here to serve our community. Our cornerstones are to Protect, Preserve, Promote, and Unify the Village. We have laid out a work plan for the coming year to support these cornerstone commitments.

In January we are rolling out our Resident Survey asking our Community for their input and feedback regarding Council initiatives. Similar to the Resident Survey we ran in late 2024, you’ll see some of the same questions as well as new ones. Please take a moment to fill it out and let us know your thoughts. Visit PortLudlowVillageCouncil.org for the survey link. This is your chance to help us set a course for the coming year and beyond.

2026 will feature a number of PLVC sponsored events:

Community Yard Sale — 2025 brought forth the incredibly successful inaugural Community Yard sale. We had local food vendors, non-profits, live music from the Stringalongs, and 30 vendors. We look to expand a bit more this spring as we now know how much our Community enjoyed this event.

Community Opportunity Fair — We will bring the Community Opportunity Fair to the Bay Club this August. The 2024 event was packed with great information! We had around 60 local organizations sharing the mission and providing opportunities for people to participate in their activities and their organizations.

Canine Costume Parade — The popularity of this event in late October 2025 took us by surprise. We had hoped to have maybe 15-20 participants, and we ended up with nearly 40! We did learn a few lessons though and will try to host this event in late September or very early October in hopes of a better weather day. Now knowing how popular this was, we hope to expand this into a Harvest Fair with food and craft vendors in addition to our bake sale and Pooch Parade. And yes, we encourage costumes!

There Is Always Room at our Table

Holiday Lights and Tree Lighting — We look forward to the December tradition of festive lights in and around the Village Center. This annual tradition could not take place without the collaboration of PLA, Astound, and Lakeside Industries.

Continued Community Website Enhancements — We have continued to build greater Community Sharing capabilities to our website. We are actively populating our Community Event Calendar as events are submitted to us. Please send us yours! We are also creating a page on our website for any local clubs, organizations, and classes to post their mission, schedule, and contact information. Think of this as an online version of the Community Opportunity Fair, or for those who have been here for a while, an online Redbook.

Summer Event — We are still working on the details, but we are planning a summer event as well! Stay tuned by signing up to receive email “eblasts,” instructions are found on our website.

Would you like to help out?

We have many ways for you to get involved and we would appreciate your help! Please consider joining our volunteer pool. Details on how to join are found on our website under the ‘From Your Council’ section. There is a link to ‘volunteer for an event’ where you can sign up to help out on the day of an event. As we need event volunteers, we’ll reach out and if you are available to help, we’ll provide you with information. If you are not available, we’ll try for the next event. If you would like to be more involved with the Village Council, all of our committees are accepting new members. Reach out via Info@PortLudlowVillageCouncil.org  And if you really want to jump in with both feet, we have the capacity to add Council Members. We are particularly excited to restart a Welcome Team designed to reach out to new residents, help them settle in, provide general local information and most importantly, ensure that they feel welcome to our Community. We would love to have you join us, there is always room at our table!