Looking for a way to get involved in the life of Windham County? Consider these mid-summer volunteer opportunities … and spread the word:
• Loaves and Fishes food shelf and kitchen on Main Street in Brattleboro needs a volunteer or volunteers with computer skills.
• Halifax School needs a volunteer gardener.
• Volunteers are needed to help with Brattleboro Housing Authority/United Way summer lunch program; one-hour slots.
Windham County Forester Bill Guenther loves seeing log trucks rumbling down Main Street. For the 60-year-old Guenther, who has been with the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation for nearly three decades, seeing those trucks piled high with hardwoods serves to remind area residents that the county's forestry...
RE: “Life is like a dumpling” [Essay, July 3]: My brother, who's still in the New York City area, just told me that our old neighborhood (Bay Ridge) is also entirely Asian, as is the Episcopalian church we attended back in the '60s. All the families we knew -
The Greater Falls Prevention Coalition and its parent and youth organizers share a jubilant thank you to the many people, businesses, and organizations that contributed to the Park-A-Polooza Neighborhood Block Party on June 29 in Bellows Falls. Now in its second year, Park-A-Polooza is a community-driven, old school, crazy-fun block party. Through creative play using the games our parents and grandparents taught us, it is another example of community-driven change in action. Community-led activities such as this one build trust...
“Re-site the Skatepark/Preserve the Crowell Lot” signs continue to be on display around Brattleboro because the skatepark is a long way from being built. Raising $400,000 is a major hurdle. Significant issues that have fueled opposition to a skatepark at the Crowell Lot location have not been answered by public officials. The message found on the signs is not a negative one. Those calling for re-siting the skatepark do not oppose recreational activities for children or adults. The issue is...
Volunteers sought for town committees BRATTLEBORO - The town of Brattleboro is looking for residents to serve on the following committees and boards: Agricultural Advisory Board, Arts Committee, BASIC (Brattleboro Area Skatepark is Coming), CPCC (Citizen Police Communications Committee), Development Review Board Alternate, Fence Viewer, Honor Roll Committee, Inspector of Lumber, Shingles & Wood, Senior Solutions Representative, SEVCA Representative. Skating Rink Committee (do not have to be a resident), Town Service Officer, and the Tree Advisory Committee. The newly formed...
Births • In Brattleboro (Memorial Hospital), July 31, 2013, a daughter, Lorelai Mae Greenleaf, to Patrick and Laurie (Baldwin) Greenleaf of Putney; granddaughter to David and Debbie Greenleaf of Brattleboro, Melody and Ken Lively of Newfane, Paula and Mel Price of California, Mo., and the late Steven Baldwin; greatgranddaughter to Gloria and Jim Pinkerton of Vernon. College news • Emily Foard of Vernon has been named to Dean's List for the spring 2013 semester at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg,
It was all New Hampshire for the 13th straight year as the Granite Staters shut out Vermont, 43-0, in the 60th Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl on Saturday night at Dartmouth's Memorial Field. The win improved New Hampshire's record in the series to 45-13-2. The Granite Staters have outscored the Green Mountain squad by a combined 266-66 during the past six gridiron meetings. New Hampshire used its customary powerful running attack to put the game out of reach. New Hampshire amassed...
The Summer Reading Camp at Jamaica Memorial Library was a great success. We worked on fiber projects, silk screening, mural painting, and we had live animals visit right in our town library. Campers learned the difference between amphibians and reptiles through slides and encounters with real animals. Participants also sang songs and dug in the dirt to search for signs of life. All was made possible by the wonderful team of volunteers and incredible artists and teachers who took the...
What exactly do actors do when they rehearse for a play? That provocative question is explored in the new production at the Actors Theatre Playhouse, “Circle Mirror Transformation.” As it follows an unlikely group of people who sign up for a theater class at a community center in the fictional town of Shirley, Vt., and watches them discover the art of theater as they play imaginative (and sometimes awkward) theater games, “Circle Mirror Transformation” provides a glimpse of what goes...
You've seen their pictures on television and their faces on street corners: a mother bathing her child from a bucket on the seat of the car they call home; a man at a stoplight with a sign that reads “Homeless vet, please help,” a homeless teenager with vacant eyes wandering aimlessly on city streets. In New York City alone, an estimated 50,000 people sleep in shelters or on the streets every night. Almost half of them are children. And the...
Windham County celebrates its past with a fourth biannual history fair on Saturday, Aug. 17, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the historic Common in Newfane, in front of the County Courthouse. The event features exhibits by the Vermont Historical Society, the Historical Society of Windham County, and the Estey Organ Museum, as well as eight historical societies in Windham County, representing Brattleboro, Dover, Grafton, Guilford, Jamaica, Putney, Townshend, and Wardsboro. In addition to their exhibits, many of the...
This month, David Perkins, artistic director of Wistaria Chamber Music Society, and the Rev. Carra McFadden, pastor of the Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro, are co-producing “Music at Centre Church,” a new series of classical music by Wistaria under Perkins' direction. Over three Sunday afternoons - Aug. 11, 18, and 25 - Music at Centre Church will present three unusual programs of music: “From Fields and Mountains,” “Friends and Lovers,” and “America Singing.” Admission to the shows is free, but...
To pave the way for a large sidewalk project next year, the town of Brattleboro and contractors held the final public meeting to collect input on the project's conceptual designs. A handful of people gathered in the Selectboard Meeting Room of the Municipal Center on July 31 to discuss conceptual designs for the approximately $600,000 project slated to break ground next spring. Monies to repair the approximately 2,100 feet of sidewalk come from town capital funds and state grants. Contractors...
Vendor applications are now being accepted for the eighth season of the Winter Farmers' Market, which will be held again at the River Garden in the heart of Brattleboro. Space for new vendors is limited, but interested parties are encouraged to submit an application before the Sept. 1 deadline. The 2013-14 Winter Market opens Nov. 2, and will be open every Saturday through March 29, 2014, for a total of 22 markets. The regular market hours for the Winter Farmers'
The Vermont Festivals popular Sunday Summer Social Concert Series at the Rockingham Meeting House continues Sunday, Aug. 11, with the harmonies and tight acoustical arrangements of The Stray Birds, a Pennsylvania trio now touring the country. This is the second of four concerts Vermont Festivals has planned for the historic building through Columbus Day weekend. According to the event announcement, when The Stray Birds take the stage, “the spotlight falls on three voices raised in harmony above the raw resonance...
July in Windham County started out hot and excessively rainy, but ended with more seasonable rainfall and temperature levels. That change in the weather has made for cleaner water at local swimming holes in Windham County, according to the latest round of testing by the Southeastern Vermont Watershed Alliance's (SeVWA's) water quality monitoring program. Water samples taken on July 31 found all but two swimming holes in the West River and Whetstone Brook watersheds had E. coli results below the...
Brattleboro Area Kinship Creations (BAKC), a support group for people raising the children of friends and relatives, is meeting for the first time on Monday, Aug. 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the University of Vermont Extension office, 11 University Way, Suite 4. The group offers caregivers in Windham County the opportunity to share with, and learn from, people in similar circumstances; explore resources; and acquire the skills to advocate for themselves and their families. The group says that,
The target date for opening the Wardsboro Public library is the end of this week. According to librarian Jill Dean, the renovation of the barn area is complete. This area will house the adult and young adult collections and the Vermont Room, which is set up with large tables for reading and programs. Renovation of the library's reception and circulation area started July 8. Dean said that a great deal has happened since the start of this project. “The sheetrock,
Making their fourth trip to Bellows Falls, the Sankofa Dance Theater of Baltimore, Md., will present an unforgettable evening of African dance, storytelling, and drumming on Friday, Aug. 9, at 7 p.m. at the Bellows Falls Opera House. Together with The Orchard School community of East Alstead, N.H., the Sankofa troupe brings to life a West African folktale, complete with the heartbeat of the drum, choreographed dance, costumes and scenery – all created by Orchard School campers in a week-long...
Stopped at the traffic light on the Main Street of Brattleboro, I see a man in his 60s, gaunt with an unshaved face, bent over his bicycle. The handlebars hold a stuffed black plastic garbage bag that I assume holds his earthly belongings. He holds up a can and is spraying and combing the purple nylon fur of a large stuffed animal with big floppy paws. I try not to stare. He flips the ears over fondly and combs carefully...
Author Rebecca Rupp has a doctorate in biochemistry and a passion for the written word. With interests as varied as biology, home-school education, and gardening, she doesn't lack for inspiration. “My problem as a writer is that practically everything interests me,” Rupp told The Commons recently in an interview from her home in Swanton. Rupp has published more than 20 critically acclaimed fiction and nonfiction books for adults and children. Her most recent work, “After Eli,” is a young adult...
In the last three weeks, reactions to Edward Snowden's leaks to the American and British press have shifted from shock at the contents of the leak to whether the leaker has the credibility of Vietnam whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg. Snowden's supporters, who include Ellsberg himself, point to the similarities between the two men: the risks they took and the love they have for democracy. Snowden's detractors point to Snowden's lack of academic and patriotic credentials. He's not Ellsberg, they say, because...
Now that we are experiencing actual summer, not some New England version of monsoon season, I have again located my appetite. Unfortunately, my time, an essential kitchen ingredient, is nowhere to be found. To make matters worse, August is the peak of garden produce. Corn has arrived, tomatoes are red and ripe, cucumbers are firm and crisp, potatoes pile up in their lovely hues of red, russet, and brown, and I want to cook it all. I have greatly overextended...
A common refrain among localvores, small-scale farmers, food producers, and various other food professionals is, “People don't know where their food comes from.” It's usually accompanied by a sigh or a half-angry, half-incredulous facial expression, or both. For this cheesemonger, that concern has come up quite a bit lately, especially as more folks “from away” have been coming to my cheese counter. In the last few weeks, rarely a day goes by where I am not asked if I “make...
• Little City Baking Co. opened Aug. 2 in the Wilder Block on Main Street in Brattleboro. Described on its website (littlecitybaking.com) as “the culmination of years of planning and preparation,” its founder, Danielle “Dani” Bochneak, a former attorney from Chicago, has relocated into a career change. Initial hours for the bakery will be Wednesdays, 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.; Thursdays, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Fridays, 7 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 1 a.m.; and Sundays,
I was born in the late 1970s during the breast-feeding revival. My mother, always slightly on the crunchy left of society's well-established “norm,” was a model pregnant woman. No caffeine. Natural births. Lots of pie. It was a non-issue for her: she would breast-feed. And, she did. All four of us. She breast-fed through the breast-feeding revival and into the corporate formula push of the 1990s, happily feeding her children, in hip times and in bad, 'til nipple did we...
The first tangible sign that the Brooks House project is picking up speed came early Tuesday morning when the Harmony Lot underpass was closed to traffic. The closure came at the request of Bread Loaf Construction of Middlebury, the primary contractor on the Brooks House project. The underpass is expected to remain closed for the duration of the year-long renovations. Scaffolding at the rear of the building that had been up for more than a year has come down. Instead,
Every so often, I say I'm going to quit. Things aren't working out, it seems. Take the auditions and advance to the next round or don't, but that isn't even really the point. The problem: The process, for me, has become entirely too negative, too self-deprecating. Music is a large part of my identity, and when that identity continually gets hit over the head with a hammer, well ... eventually you just want to move out of the way. I...
The chanterelles are late this year, and they are small. But, oh, man - the flavor. As I sit here eating a spoonful of these delicate apricot-y fungal morsels, I think about summer in Vermont and how fleeting each new ripening is. One can tell the time of the year in Vermont - almost to the day, mostly to the week, and certainly to the month - by what is at the peak of ripeness. As the snow thaws, spring...
RE: “When you throw a gun into the mix” and “Easy access to a gun” [Letters, July 31]: Just what type of law, Isabel Loudig, would you like the governor to propose that might have prevented the killing at the Brattleboro Food Co-op? Murder is already illegal. Do you sleep better when people are killed with other tools? We don't need more government control; we need a community that cares for its own instead of exploiting tragedy for a personal...
RE: “A sad shift of focus” [Letters, July 31]: I have been a member of the Brattleboro Food Co-op for many years. I will continue to shop at the co-op and support the store as a member. I think it is a safe assumption that most of us who are or have been in painful and difficult work situations do not resort to gun violence. I never felt that the co-op did not have the right to change and grow...
Marlboro Music closes its 63rd season with concerts on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 9 and 10 at 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, Aug. 11 at 2:30 p.m.. Only 25 percent of the 200 chamber works, suggested by the musicians themselves, are publicly performed each summer, but there was such an outpouring of works that the resident artists wanted to share, that an extra invitational concert has been scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 8 at 8 p.m. in the Marlboro College Dining Hall.
RE: “Visions, values, and tragedy” [Special Focus, July 17]: Not in anyway to excuse or justify Richard Gagnon's actions, but here's a piece of information that I thought possibly could have been a significant contributing factor and helpful in understanding his tragic decision on Aug. 9, 2011. In his letters to Joyce Marcel [“What goes through a murderer's mind?”], Mr. Gagnon wrote that he had experienced five or six consecutive sleepless nights leading up to the shooting. Brain research studies...
In an Aug. 1 public meeting, complete with a bridge angel, consultants for the Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT), the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT), and the Federal Highway Administration took public comment on an environmental assessment required as part of replacing the two steel truss bridges connecting Brattleboro and Hinsdale, N.H. Although the environmental assessment is an important step, construction of a new bridge is many years away. New Hampshire, which has jurisdiction over the Hinsdale bridges, recently...
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital President and CEO Steve Gordon remembers getting a visit from Gov. Peter Shumlin shortly after Gordon started at the hospital. Shumlin met with the staff and physicians, and Gordon said the governor opened the meeting with a challenge: “If you don't change, you will have to close your doors.” “And then he looked at me,” said Gordon, “and said, 'Isn't that right, Steve?' As I looked around the room, I saw a lot of surprise and angst...
Forest Moon of Brattleboro, a nonprofit organization providing therapeutic programs and workshops for cancer survivors and their families since 2004, announced its closure on July 22, citing an inability to keep up with funding demands. Meanwhile, like-minded area nonprofits, such as the New England Center for Circus Arts (NECCA) of Brattleboro, and Cancer Connection (www.cancer-connection.org) of Northampton, Mass., have pledged to continue facilitating several of Forest Moon's programs with the help of former Forest Moon staff, volunteers, and partners. Anne...
Are you an artist trying to get enough time in the studio? Do you find it challenging to make good use of your time when you finally get there? Are you an entrepreneur struggling to get far enough ahead of production deadlines to develop something creative and new? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you may want to register for “Time to Innovate: Managing Time to Support Creativity,” a daylong workshop with Integral Master Coach Lyedie...
The anti-nuclear organization New England Coalition and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group are asking the Vermont Public Service Board to take into account new information about layoffs at Vermont Yankee as part of the board's decision to approve or deny the nuclear plant a new 20-year license to operate. Last week, Entergy Corp., which owns Vermont Yankee, announced that it would cut about 30 jobs at the nuclear plant by the end of the year. Both nonprofits are parties...
“I'm smiling because I'm home,” U.S. Rep. Peter Welch said during a small-business roundtable on Monday. “Congress is kind of a fact-free zone these days.” Vermont's lone, at-large Congressman touted the Vermont tradition of working from common ground and the wisdom of local decision-making during a visit to Brattleboro. Welch met with local business owners at the Brattleboro Development Credit Corp., held a “Congress in Your Community” public meeting at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden, and wrapped up his...