Five Things You Need to Know Today: Dec. 17

1. Share your love for Newtown. We may not be neighbors in the geographical sense, but at Patch we feel a sense of community across our 900 sites. That's why we here in Massachusetts want to share our love, our thoughts and our prayers with our neighbors in Newtown, Conn. and we want your help. We wanted to do what we do best—pull our communities together through our sites and social media—and create a huge virtual card for the close-knit community that lost so much on Dec. 14. Visit this article to see how you can contribute to this virtual card.

2. School Committee. The Newton School Committee will hold a special meeting tonight at 6 p.m. to discuss superintendent goals as well as budget guidelines for fiscal 2014. The meeting will be held in the Education Center. 

3. Board of Aldermen meeting. The Newton Board of Aldermen will meet tonight at 7:45 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chamber at City Hall. The aldermen will take a few moments tonight to honor some people in the community, including . The aldermen will also take a vote on a lease that would pave the way for the proposed Upper Falls Greenway.

4. Beautiful Newtonville survey. Beautiful Newtonville is looking for input from Newtonville residents to help improve the village. The 10-minute survey is available online.

5. Yard waste collection ends this week. Curbside yard waste collection ends this week, the week of Dec. 17. Yard waste collection will resume in April.