WBA meeting features Q&A with District 1 Town Meeting members
WEST BRATTLEBORO - The next monthly meeting of the West Brattleboro Association will be held Thursday, March 9, at 6 p.m., in the Hayes Court Community Room on Garfield Drive. After a review of the treasury report and the 2017 budget, the Neighborhoods Fund, and BizUp activities, the Association will discuss various potential uses of the balance in the Sign Fund.
A feature of this month's meeting is the Association's hosting of District 1 Town Meeting representatives at 7 p.m. This is a chance for area residents to engage in an informal Q&A regarding the warrant for the March 25 Annual Representative Town Meeting. This part of the meeting will be facilitated by Paula Melton and Chris Chapman, District 1 caucus co-chairs.
Coming up are the Association's April 13 monthly meeting, the next BizUp quarterly event (tentatively set for April 19), Green-up Day on May 6, and the Chicken BBQ on May 27.
Annual Sugar-on-Snow Supper served in West Brattleboro
WEST BRATTLEBORO - For 65 years, the First Congregational Church, 880 Western Ave., has been serving up a delicious Vermont sugar-on-snow supper each March.
On Saturday, March 11, the tradition continues with a menu of ham, baked beans, coleslaw, potato salad, deviled eggs, homemade rolls and donuts, sugar on snow, pickles, coffee, tea, and milk. There will be two seatings: 5 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. Prices for adults are $12; children ages 5-12, $6; ages 4 and under, $3. For reservations, call 802-257-7557.
Fukushima vigil planned for March 11
BRATTLEBORO - On Saturday, March 11, from noon to 1 p.m., the Safe & Green Campaign is hosting a vigil in Pliny Park to once again call attention to the ongoing nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.
Ever since March 11, 2011, when a massive tsunami severely damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the water and environment have suffered from radioactive contamination. People are still displaced, and there are no solutions in sight.
Vigil participants are asked to gather in solidarity with the evacuees of a region once as productive, beautiful, and beloved as southern Vermont. For more information, visit www.safeandgreencampaign.org/fukushima/2017/02/fukushima-6.
Rabies clinic in Wilmington
WILMINGTON - On Saturday, March 11, from 10 a.m. to noon, a rabies clinic with low-cost vaccinations will be held at the Wilmington Fire House at the corner of Beaver and Church streets.
Veterinarian Miles Powers will be in attendance. Dogs must be leashed; cats must be crated. Dog licensing for Wilmington residents will be available during the same hours at the Town Clerk's Office at 2 East Main Street. The clinic is open to all.
AAUW to celebrate Women's History Month with talk
BRATTLEBORO - Abigail is the woman who comes to mind when we mention Mrs. Adams, but her daughter-in-law Louisa Catherine also holds a significant spot in history, both as the wife of President John Quincy Adams and in her own right.
The Brattleboro Branch of the American Association of University Women will celebrate Women's History Month and the life of the other Mrs. Adams on Tuesday, March 14, at 1 p.m., at Brooks Memorial Library with a talk by Mary Ackerman Hayes of Keene, N.H., based on the biography Louisa Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams.
Ackerman Hayes helped bring the biography to fruition after its author, her sister Margery Heffron, died in 2011, before its publication. Heffron's more than 30 years of research, combing through Adams family archives and the letters between the Adamses of both generations, have resulted in a portrait of a woman who was shrewd, intellectual, articulate, and a keen observer of the political and social scene of her time in London, St. Petersburg, and Washington.
Through her skill as a hostess and keen sense of the moment, she is largely credited with her husband's successful bid for the presidency in 1824 in a close and controversial four-way race. The talk is open to the public at no charge in the upstairs meeting room of the library.
The Association advances education and equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy and research. Further information is available by contacting President Vivian Prunier at 802-387-5875.
William Ayers to speak at SIT
BRATTLEBORO - William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (retired), will speak on March 14, from 6 to 8 p.m., at the Lowey International Center, Room 101, at the SIT Graduate Institute, 1 Kipling Rd. The event is free and open to the public.
Ayers' talk, “I Shall Create: The Fierce Urgency of Now!”, addresses activism and community. “Choosing hopefulness is holding out the possibility of change,” Ayers says. “It's living with one foot in the mud and muck of the world as it is, while another foot strides forward toward a world that could be, but is not yet.”
Ayers' published works include Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident. He is a member of the executive committee of the Faculty Senate and founder of the Small Schools Workshop and the Center for Youth and Society. He has taught interpretive and qualitative research, oral history, creative nonfiction, urban school change, and teaching in the modern predicament.
Radio Club to conduct ham-radio license tests
TOWNSHEND - The West River Radio Club is offering another opportunity for persons to earn their ham-radio license on Tuesday, March 14, at 5:30 p.m., in the Heins Building at Grace Cottage Hospital.
The club can accommodate all levels of testing, and walk-ins are welcome. Bring two forms of identification and $15. For more information, contact Mary Peterson at [email protected] or call 802-258-3921.
AARP Foundation Tax-Aide program offers free tax assistance and preparation
BRATTLEBORO - Free tax assistance and preparation for taxpayers with low and moderate income, with special attention to those 60 and older, are available through the AARP Foundation Tax-Aide program through the middle of April. You don't need to be a member of AARP or a retiree to use this service.
AARP Foundation Tax-Aide volunteers, trained in cooperation with the Internal Revenue Service, will offer help with personal income tax returns at various locations in the Brattleboro area.
Call for appointments. Free tax assistance is available, by appointment only, at the following locations: Brattleboro Senior Center: Mondays and Thursdays, 802-257-7570; Community Bible Chapel: Wednesdays, 802-257-1594; VFW, Mondays: 802-246-7252.
Book donations needed for library sale
WEST DUMMERSTON - Lydia Taft Pratt Library, located in the Dummerston Community Center on West Street, is accepting book donations for its Book Sale and Geranium Festival, to be held Saturday, May 20.
Fiction and nonfiction, paperback and hardback, cookbooks, travel, history, and mystery, are all needed, as well as LPs, CDs, and DVDs.
To donate, contact Barbara Clark at 802-254-1524. Books may be dropped off at the library, or pickup can be arranged for large amounts of books. No textbooks or magazines, please.