Eleni Kavros DeGraw

I want to wish you a Happy New Year! I look forward to serving you and the residents of Connecticut during the 2025 legislative session, which begins on January 8th. And with that, I want to point out several new laws passed during the 2024 session that will go into effect on Wednesday, January 1.

The hustle and bustle of the season is upon us and so, unfortunately, are scams. We have a warning below for our seniors and a reminder about keeping packages safe from “porch pirates.” It’s terrible that we have to think about these situations, but an ounce of prevention is valuable this time of year.

I hope you are staying safe in all of this rain and my hope is we will have minimal or hopefully no power outages.

As I mentioned last week, there are so many opportunities to help our neighbors this holiday season, and something for every budget. I’m sponsoring my second annual Winter Warm Up for our most at-risk neighbors, the homeless in our region. Details below of all the local drop-off points.

I’ll be honest, Thanksgiving has never been my favorite holiday (no lights, no real theme, no music?) and this year is especially difficult for my family. This Thursday, as everyone gathers with family and friends, we have an empty seat at our table and in our hearts as this would have been my grandfather’s 100th birthday. Yes, he had a long life, but as he was in great shape physically and mentally, we really thought we had more years to come.

As you’ll see below, we have quite a few things happening. Up first, for those needing home heating assistance this winter, I’ve included information on how to apply.

You may have noticed I didn’t send out an e-news last week. We were all a little tired after the election and there wasn’t quite as much local information to provide as there normally is. But, we are back at it this week!

One thing I know for sure about being your State Representative: no two days are the same!