HASTINGS, N.E. - This year’s Samfest celebration, the long-running annual Good Samaritan Village festival anticipating autumn, did double and triple duty as a 100th birthday party for the village’s parent organization, the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society; and a 65th anniversary for the Hastings village itself.
“It’s been a pretty big deal, and we’ve had a lot of fun recognizing that,” said Ashley Fitzgerald, director of the Community Center at the Hastings village, of the dual anniversaries.
“Dad Hoeger’s motto, ‘Ever forward in God’s love,’ lives on,” she said. “We stand in a unique moment in history where we can look back on a full century of care and witness how our work today will shape the next 100 years.