It’s not often the same group of high school best friends stays in touch nearly six decades after graduation, let alone still gets together to see each other, but this one group of five women from the Easthampton High School Class of 1967 gathers to play golf once a month — and they have for quite some time.

Except when Patricia Wood of Westhampton, Lona St. Martin of Westfield, Maureen Quinlan of Southampton, Diane Morissette of Easthampton and Elaine Williams of Northampton play their version of golf, they aren’t outside with clubs and bags whacking around a ball for nine or 18 holes. Instead, the quintet is cracking jokes with one another as they toss around a deck of cards.

Their favorite card game is called “Golf.”

“You deal out six cards to each person, and you put the cards in front of you in two rows of three, face down,” Wood explained. “The first person flips whatever cards they want, and you strive to get a matching pair. And then you draw from the deck. It’s an interesting game.”

Golf is just one of the many games the crew plays at their typical gathering spot, the Northampton home of Elaine Williams. Before they made their monthly meetings a constant, when members of the crew were raising children and had less time on their hands, hanging out became more uncommon. However, unexpected tragedy hit one of the members of the group.

In 2003, Lona St. Martin lost her husband, George, at 56. She then lost her son Scott much too soon, and had to say goodbye to her 53-year-old daughter, Brenda, in 2021. The other four friends ensured that Lona didn’t have to navigate the overwhelming amount of grieving on her own. They made it a priority to see each other more often, and that kick-started the monthly card game assemblies — which Wood admitted can get competitive.

For quite some time when Wood, St. Martin, Quinlan, Morissette and Williams would get together around Christmas, they would exchange gifts that met the spending limit they set beforehand. But as the years passed, they decided to do away with buying each other presents.

So this year, as they have done for the past several, the five of them pooled their money together to make a donation to the Sidney F. Smith Toy Fund in memory of Lona’s lost family members — George and Scott St. Martin and Brenda Ulrich. They also made another donation for Elaine’s late husband, who died in 2020.

“We used to share gifts at Christmas time, but it got too crazy and we said to each other, ‘Why are we doing this? None of us need anything,’” Wood said. “And Lona has lost three people she loved more than anything, so rather than exchanging gifts, we put our funds together to make a donation.”

Named after a former business manager at the Gazette, the Toy Fund began in 1933 to help families in need during the Depression. Today, the fund distributes vouchers worth $50 to qualifying families for each child from age 1 to 14.

The five women are a mix of 75 and 76 years old, and they’ve known each other very well for essentially their entire time on earth. Losing loved ones so close to them, several at ages far too young, has put life into perspective as they approach their 80s. Now each time they flock to Elaine’s house, the hugs last a sliver longer, the jokes become that much funnier and the “I love yous” mean more than they ever have.

They all want to cherish every moment and the time they have together.

“One of us is always throwing out a text saying it’s time to get together, or just saying, ‘Miss you,’” Wood said. “So yeah, we try to do it once a month.”

Meeting during the holidays has become especially important, because, after all, being with family is what the season is about. The five of them have become just that, their own small family, and it certainly means the world to Lona and Elaine — who have dealt with unthinkable, painful loss — to have their best friends by their side every step of the way.

“Just getting together helps,” Wood said. “Being with each other, being there for each other, that’s what helps.”

To be eligible for the Toy Fund, families must live in any Hampshire County community except Ware, or in the southern Franklin County towns of Deerfield, Sunderland, Whately, Shutesbury and Leverett, and in Holyoke in Hampden County.

The following stores are participating this year: A2Z Science and Learning Store, 57 King St., Northampton; Blue Marble/Little Blue, 150 Main St., Level 1, Northampton; High Five Books, 141 N. Main St., Florence; The Toy Box, 201 N. Pleasant St., Amherst; Comics N More, 64 Cottage St., Easthampton; Once Upon A Child,1458 Riverdale St., West Springfield; Plato’s Closet, 1472 Riverdale St., West Springfield; Sam’s Outdoor Outfitters, 227 Russell St., Hadley; Odyssey Bookshop, 9 College St., Village Commons, South Hadley; The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, 125 W. Bay Road, Amherst; World Eye Bookshop, 134 Main St., Greenfield; Holyoke Sporting Goods Co., and 1584 Dwight St. No. 1, Holyoke.