This is NJHN President Lisa Ridge’s talk given at our 2025 HumanLight Celebration on December 14, 2025
Let me start with a spoiler alert: There will be a toast at the end of this, so please get yourself the drink of your choice before I get there!
I’m going to tell you about NJHN’s year in 2025. Let’s see what you remember or you missed.
In January we started with a video presentation of Yuval Noah Harari talking about AI and the Future of Humanity. Our Board of Directors also voted to have NJHN join 16 national organizations and other affiliated groups and individuals to sign a Statement Affirming Commitment to Protecting LGBTQ+ Rights.
In February we also showed a video presentation of Professor Robin May talking about Evolution Tomorrow and Beyond.
In March we hosted Dr. Julien Musolino’s talk about The Problem of Free Will.
In April we hosted a hybrid talk by Kenny Biddle, the Chief Investigator of Paranormal Claims for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and also held a Garage Sale over three days and raised over $1,621 and that was all due to the hard work of Holly Hotchkiss and some great high-end donations.
In May we shared a video presentation of The Thinking Atheist, Seth Andrews’ talk titled Dissent Is Our Duty.
In June, we weren’t able to table at the Asbury Park Pride Festival due to multiple illnesses of our volunteers. But later that month we hosted a hybrid talk by author Kate Cohen titled Why America Needs Atheists Now More Than Ever. This was also our Annual Membership Meeting and Board of Directors election. We shared ideas for future plans and heard feedback from our members. We also elected Board members for the next two years and officers for the next one year. Besides me as President, would our other Board members here today just stand for a moment to be recognized: Vice President Adriana Cordal, Treasurer Robert Lovatt, and Secretary Gary Brill, as well as Tamar Kieval Brill, Brenda LaDuke, Rhonda Marker, and Joe Vincenzino. Board members who couldn’t be with us today are Sue Landry and Ronda Cluff. I also want to thank Tim Ridge and Len Cacciatore of our Technology Committee. We’ve had a busy year, as I’m here to tell you, and these folks help make it all happen.
For the fifth year, in July we hosted our popular Summer Art & Hobby Show, at the Monroe Township Library, where our members and others shared their incredible artistic talents and what inspires their happiness and creativity. We even had patrons and staff of the library visit the displays and join in some button and magnet making! This is a fun social event for our community and I encourage more members to consider participating next year.
In August, we held our summer picnic at Duke Island Park in Bridgewater, and this year the weather was nice!
But just in case, we held a second outdoor gathering, our End of Summer Bash, at Colonial Park in Somerset in September. Also in September we had another information table at the Franklin Day Festival in Somerset. We welcomed some new member volunteers and talked with many people from the area who learned about NJHN for the first time.
Our October speaker via Zoom was Avram Alpert, author of the book The Good-Enough Life, who spoke about What a Good-Enough Future Could Look Like.
And in November we hosted a presentation by Carol Simon Levin on the life and accomplishments of Frances Perkins, the first female cabinet member as Secretary of Labor, who implemented the New Deal policies of the Roosevelt presidency from 1933-1945. In early November I was the invited speaker for the Lehigh Valley Humanists, where we talked about the ways in which our two groups can work together more often.
And here we are today, closing out our year with our 25th celebration of our Humanist values.
Throughout the year, we continued our monthly Book Club, where we read a variety of 10 nonfiction books to expand our understanding of human challenges and achievements, our history and future. Including the weird and courageous lives of astronauts, the Nordic theory of a better life, the wisdom and wonder of uncertainty, the science behind hope and human goodness, everything you never knew about the history of tuberculosis, the awakening and weaponization of democracy, the crises we face by the loss of our freedom to flourish, the lives of the Radium Girls and the beginning of workplace safety regulations, a quick and tasty bite of astrophysics for us busy people, and the fluke of random chance and chaos of our lives. We’ll end this month with a book tour of the mind and the fast and slow systems that shape how we think.
And we continue meeting for our Monthly Dinner at the Omega Diner in North Brunswick each month.
We’ve been alternating our program meeting locations between the libraries in Franklin Twp and Monroe Twp to accommodate our members who live in different areas, and sometimes one library is available when the other one is not. I do want to share with you that we’ve seen a decline in attendance at our in-person program meetings on Sundays and that is one reason why we’ve had video presentations and several speakers who have given their talks via Zoom. We are going to be reaching out to our members soon to see if we can understand better why this is happening and what we might do about it. To find out if this is a program issue, a time issue, a location issue, or other things. At the same time, we’ll work to create more fun, social gatherings this coming year.
We’ve shared information about many virtual programs, conferences and celebrations from national, regional and international organizations, and the release of reports of critical importance here and around the world. We’ve shared action alerts asking you to contact your elected officials on important issues.
And we awarded our third Secular Student Scholarship to a young woman named Shreya Gautam, a biochemistry student at Stockton University with a strong interest in gender equality and health education. For Shreya, secularism is a framework for authenticity, empathy, and fairness, guiding her studies and her activism. She says that “Secularism has given me a clarity of all my thoughts. It has given me peace and purpose to advocate for people who are not as privileged as me.” I think there are announcements for this around the room and I hope you’ve had a chance to read about what an impressive young woman Shreya is.
We’ve welcomed 18 new members in 2025; well, 2 of them we’re welcoming back after some years away. We have our Community Cares program for our members, to show that our community wants to support you in times of joy and sadness, to celebrate your successes, to offer our support in difficult times, our condolences when you experience loss. To keep in touch with you when these life events happen. We hope you’ll continue to share these experiences with us. You might be getting an email from us soon asking if you’ll share your birth day and month so that we can send our best wishes.
I’d like to thank those who arrived early today to help set things up, those who will stay afterward to clean things up, and those who made an extra donation. Finally, I’d like to thank all who donated items for our Silent Auction and to those who bid on those items over the last week. I don’t know the final numbers yet, but I’m hoping we’ve been able to raise about $350.
As we knew it would be, this has been an extremely difficult year. It’s been difficult to stay engaged with all that has happened and continues to happen, but also nearly impossible to turn away from it. I don’t know if any of us truly realized the depths of malevolent and malignant cruelty that so many elected officials, federal agency leaders, and their supporters could reach, and the rage, disgust and sadness we would find ourselves struggling with. I hope each of you has found your way to be a positive force in your own community and circles, even in the small ways that truly matter.
As for the future, we face many tough days ahead, for ourselves, our families and friends, those we care about, those we don’t even know and never will. We will continue to see challenges to the values we share and hold dear. American democracy, its best institutions, and scientific integrity are at risk. Many of us are working our way through grief and despair, a sense of resignation, an inability to accept the unacceptable. We’ve had the time to do that, and find the resolve to look for inspiration and the positive paths. I know how hard many of you have worked, volunteering your time, and I’d like to hear more about that, but work remains. As I said to you here last year, we’ll join with others, including those who believe differently than we do. Act with love and kindness and generosity. Try to heal old wounds and not make new ones. Look for examples in those who are making a positive difference in the world. Stand with the helpers. Show up, figure out what we need to learn, get the skills, ask for help, and stand up for each other. Ground ourselves in our values and refuse to abandon one another. Anger and fear will tell us that we’re wasting our time and nothing will change. We’re not giving up. It can feel like the world is falling apart. But there are millions of tiny acts of kindness still holding it together. And seek out joy and laughter as often as we can. We are intelligent and resourceful. We have a vision of a better future, one that works for all of us with no one left out.
Thank you all for coming today and sharing some of your holiday time with us. I’d like to propose a toast for all of us for 2026: For good health and success, happy times with family, friends and pets, time to relax and travel, good food and drink, good books and music, and all the rest that fulfills you. The powerful impact of working together, the resolution of conflicts around the world and world leaders seeking peaceful and restorative solutions. And better days ahead, as we continue to celebrate our Humanist values of Reason, Compassion, and Hope for a better future for humanity! Happy Holidays, Happy HumanLight, and Happy New Year, to all of you!
Lisa Ridge, President
New Jersey Humanist Network
December 14, 2025
Published 12/23/25