Getting healthier is often high on the list of goals to start the new year, and eating right is critical to good health.
With the high cost of food, fuel, housing, and health care, many people can't afford to buy enough nutritious food for themselves and their families. 3SquaresVT can help put more healthy food on the table, giving them the energy and strength they need to achieve their goals in 2018, according to a news release.
3SquaresVT is Vermont's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, designed to help households without sufficient resources meet their need for healthy, nutritious food. A family of four earning up to $3,793 per month may be eligible, and households can have a savings account or an asset like a car or home and still qualify.
Whether they are experiencing a short-term financial crisis or longer-term challenges, 3SquaresVT helps seniors, families, and individuals with lower incomes make ends meet. In fact, 1 in 8 Vermonters already receive 3SquaresVT benefits. Monthly benefits come on a debit card accepted at most grocery stores, making it easy for households to use them.
College news • Colton Butler of Whitingham has been named to the Elmira (N.Y.) College Dean's List for the fall 2017 term. • Jeremy Betit of Whitingham and Sebastian Szykier of South Newfane were both named to the Champlain College President's List for achieving a grade point average of...
2018 dog licenses now available BRATTLEBORO - Brattleboro dog and wolf-hybrid licenses are available for the 2018 licensing period. Vermont dogs and wolf-hybrids 6 months and older must be licensed on or before April 1. Renewal licenses may be obtained in person at the Town Clerk's office, through the...
Every third Monday in January, we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr. - a day largely marked by recommitments to the continued struggle for racial and economic justice within the United States. In 2017, we saw the ongoing repression of racialized groups and the normalization of violence and brutality. The consequences of racism arise in so many different sectors of society, and they disproportionately impact people of color. MLK's fight for racial equality also entailed his commitment to...
Having heard that the Brattleboro Union High School school board has proposed to cut Mikeala Simm's position as director of diversity, equity, and social justice, I would like to share this essay written in 2017, based on the daily experiences of people of color in our community. I strongly oppose this high school budget cut and would strongly support diversity curriculum that starts in kindergarten. I warn you that this commentary might leave you with more questions than answers. But...
The Putney Central School eighth-grade social studies class invites the community to “Putney Art Stories,” a public screening of short videos of artists, craftspeople, and makers who live and work in the Putney community. The free screening will take place at Next Stage, 15 Kimball Hill, on Thursday, Jan. 11, at 6:30 p.m. Each student was paired with an individual in Putney's creative community, including sculptor Joe Fichter, custom drummaker Nathaniel Hall, and printmaker Briony Morrow-Cribbs. Students produced short video...
Art in the Neighborhood, a local nonprofit organization that provides tuition-free art classes to children in low-income housing communities in Brattleboro, recently finished its 12-week fall semester. Classes operate year-round at Westgate Housing, Ledgewood Heights, and Moore Court. Art in the Neighborhood also brings classes to the Health Care & Rehabilitation Services of Vermont summer program at the Guilford Fairgrounds. In a news release, Executive Director Mollie Burke said the recent expansion of classes at Moore Court included outreach into...
A second public hearing on the proposed new Hinsdale-Brattleboro bridge is set for Thursday, Jan. 18, at 7 p.m. at the Hinsdale Town Hall, 11 Main St. The Town Hall will be open a half hour before the hearing, so the public can get a look at the plans for the new bridge. Interested land owners, local officials, and highway users are welcome to attend and express their comments about the project, which is tentatively scheduled to be put out...
Through March 18, Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts, 183 Main St., presents “Winter Group,” an exhibit of new work by Donald Saaf, Torin Porter, Josh Bernbaum, and Jackie Abrams, and select work by their gallery artists. They are also pleased to welcome and introduce printmaker Erika Radich. An artists reception is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 11, from 5 to 7 p.m., with a collaborative artist talk set for Saturday, Feb. 10, at 5 p.m. Painter and collage artist Donald Saaf creates work...
The Brattleboro Fire Department recently announced the retirement of Firefighter Allyn Olney. According to Fire Chief Michael Bucossi, Olney joined the Call Force in June 1986 and was hired to the Career Staff in October 1987, serving the citizens of Brattleboro for the past 30 years. In a news release, Bucossi called Olney “a very special employee, a dedicated firefighter, and a role model for all.” Olney received the “Firefighter of the Year Award” in 2004 and a “Meritorious Unit...
Spanning genres and moving into edgy new territory, Night Tree comes to Immanuel Episcopal Church, the “Stone Church on the Hill” at 20 Church St., on Friday, Jan. 12, at 7:30 p.m. Night Tree consists of Lily Honigberg and Chris Overholser on violin; Zach Mayer on baritone and soprano sax and vocals; Sunniva Brynnel, accordion and vocals; McKinley James on cello; and Julian Loida on percussion. Though each member of Night Tree originates from a different world, the six members...
Voters in Brattleboro need to know that, on Dec. 20, the Brattleboro School Board ignored the will of the voters and voted 3–2 against the Alternative Governance Structure application and instead asked the State Board of Education to impose the defeated school merger proposal on our community. I was not able to attend the meeting but watched most of it on BCTV. What was most disturbing about the meeting was the way the chair of the School Board ran the...
The Guilford Town School Board recently made its official recommendation to the Vermont Agency of Education regarding compliance with Act 46. In a news release, Board Chair Beth Bristol said that “after substantial investment in the process, and deep contemplation of the options, the Guilford Town School Board believes the Articles of Agreement, as presented by the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union Act 46 Study Committee, to be the best available solution for sustainability and viability of Guilford Central School, while...
My husband has three kids. On Christmas morning, about a quarter of the gifts are labelled “From Santa.” His kids even left a voice message for Santa in November and told him all the things they wanted. So many parents in this country want to keep the “magic alive,” but at what cost? Have we stopped to question how detrimental it is to our global society to have kids in supposedly wealthy countries believe that “elves in the North Pole”
RAMParts Presents, in partnership with National Theatre Live, Bolshoi Ballet, and Exhibition on Screen, will bring art, stage, and dance offerings to the big screen of the Bellows Falls Opera house from January through June in 2018. On Sunday, Jan. 14, the National Theatre Live brings Tony Kushner's Angels in America Part 1: Millenium Approaches. This seminal work was begun in the late 1980s, reached Broadway in 1993, and became an HBO mini-series in 2003. This version of the production...
I write to describe shocking and painful events that led to the death of my beloved 9-year-old dog, in hopes that others may be spared. On Dec. 29, as my 12-pound dog and I returned from our morning walk on the common in Putney village, a large dog tore across the street, snarling, and a woman ran after it, yelling. The large dog immediately jumped upon my dog, and with huge jaws attacked her. The woman attempted to gain control,
'Speak Out for Justice' event at Brooks Library BRATTLEBORO - On Saturday, Jan. 13, from 3 to 5 p.m., at Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro Solidarity and Brooks Memorial Library will host their third annual “Speak Out for Justice” event to celebrate the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. There will be a community open mic, art, and music. Anyone is welcome to share a poem, a song, or a few words. Soup and bread will be served after...
The Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development recently announced its fiscal year 2018 municipal planning grant recipients. “As Vermont continues to grow its economy, maintain a high quality of life and attract new people and business to the state, Municipal Planning Grants help communities accelerate local solutions, energize downtowns, and remove barriers to much-needed housing,” said Department of Housing and Community Development Commissioner Katie Buckley in a Dec. 5 news release. Windham County was well represented in this year's...
The next regular meeting of the River Valleys Unified School District Board is Monday, Jan. 15, at 7 p.m., at the Dover Elementary School. The first half-hour of this meeting is set aside specifically for providing public information about the 2018 Annual School Meeting scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 13, at Dover Town Hall on the Dover Common, according to a news release. Taxpayers in both Dover and Wardsboro can participate in any meeting of the RVUSD, as well as any...
A documentary film will take viewers into the daily lives of a Buddhist community in France, followed by a discussion with two former monastics who lived and practiced there. A 2017 British film, Walk With Me, explores three years in the monastic life within Plum Village Buddhist Community, described on its website as Europe's largest Buddhist monastery. More than 200 monks practice the art of mindfulness there, welcoming thousands of meditation practitioners from around the world for visits and retreats.
So the School for International Training is closing its graduate campus in Brattleboro. In true corporate-speak, the press release talks glowingly of how it will “transition our face-to-face programs [...] to global locations.” I, for one, think that the school will lose a remarkable local experiment in international living. And it's ironic, since when I went there the place was actually called the Experiment in International Living, and that's what I experienced, up there on that beautiful hill on the...
The Selectboard recently approved the Broad Brook Community Center's request to allow voters to decide if the Broad Brook Grange should pay municipal property taxes. At the Dec. 11 regular Selectboard meeting, Sara Coffey and Don McLean, president and vice-president of the Community Center, gave the Board an update on the Community Center's progress purchasing and renovating the Broad Brook Grange and asked for a Town Meeting warning item addressing the property's tax-exempt status. During the past two years, the...
When Brendan Taaffe first saw one, he thought it was magical. When he saw one for the second time, he still found it wondrous, but also figured that he could make one. Thus began Taaffe's love affair with crankies. “A crankie is an old storytelling art form,” writes Sue Truman at her website dedicated to the art of crankies: www.thecrankiefactory.com. “It's a long, illustrated scroll that is wound onto two spools. The spools are loaded into a box which has...
Good day to you, fellow humans being, that was a prolific and historic cold snap we just endured! Thankfully, we have gotten out from underneath the Siberian Thumb (a term I just invented), and are enjoying seasonable to above-seasonable conditions for at least the end of this week. We've got a bout of light freezing rain Wednesday night into Thursday morning, very mild and rainy conditions Thursday night into Friday night, a potential ice storm Saturday and Saturday night, and...
Robin MacArthur seemingly won the lottery when prominent New York publisher HarperCollins offered her a contract to pen a novel that depicts how climate change - and, specifically, 2011's Tropical Storm Irene - can alter the course of land and life. Then the 2016 presidential election hit her with an equally hard wallop. Could a leader of the free world actually doubt the science behind her book, the local writer wondered, and who would want to read fiction when reality...
A little over five decades ago, I arrived at the former Sandanona Estate just north of Brattleboro, recently purchased by the Experiment in International Living (now World Learning, Inc.) to serve as a training site for Peace Corps volunteers destined for many countries around the world. As Peace Corps training moved in-country, the site eventually developed into the School for International Training (SIT) with the development of its first MA program, the Teaching of Languages, followed by various other MAT...
One might not immediately associate Vermont with the growing of ginger, and yet in the past few years these exotic tropical nuggets are making a name as an up-and-coming crop. Ginger - along with its cousin, turmeric - found its way to Windham County farms not because of global warming, but rather from the determination of local dedicated farmers who like to push the limits of what we can grow in our short season. “It's interesting to have new challenges,”
Affordability. What does that word mean to you? To me, the word has come to mean necessary, to mean room to breathe, to mean thriving, to mean having enough resources to meet immediate needs like housing and food. Affordability means all that - and having resources to put away for a rainy day. And enough resources left over for dinner and a movie. As a Vermonter, it is painful to admit that our state is not affordable for many of...
In this darkest time of the year, board members of the Greater Falls Warming Shelter are sending the message that a winter scarf can provide more than physical warmth. By placing scarves around town with a tag that reads, “If you need it, please take this scarf as our gift to you,” they hope to let folks know that they care and make others aware that an extra scarf, hat, pair of gloves, or coat can make a big difference...
Tickets are on sale for Brattleboro's 15th annual Collegiate A Cappella Concert, a benefit for the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, at the Latchis Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 3, at 7:30 p.m. Sponsored by Brattleboro Savings & Loan, the concert features eight singing groups from around New England. Six of these groups include “hometown singers” from southern Vermont and two perennial favorites from Tufts University. One of Brattleboro's most popular annual cultural events, the Collegiate A Cappella Concert was launched...
This past week's brutal cold and snow made hash of the high school sports schedule, with several postponements due to the weather. However, the Brattleboro boys' and girls' ice hockey teams did their part to heat things up with an exciting doubleheader on Jan. 3 at Withington Rink. • The Brattleboro boys started the doubleheader with a come-from-behind 5-4 win over the North Country Falcons. This game was back-and-forth all the way. Four times when the Falcons scored to take...
The School for International Training is about to undergo a major transition. SIT still will have its headquarters in Brattleboro, but according to its president, Dr. Sophia Howlett, its educational programs will expand to the more than 30 countries where SIT has learning sites. Last week, SIT issued a news release saying it would no longer offer full-time graduate programs in Brattleboro. The emphasis will be shifted to developing a new, full-time, global master's degree program that will instead use...
For the month of January, the Crowell Gallery at the Moore Free Library in Newfane presents “Landscapes & Critters,” featuring Newfane artist Steven Meyer, who will display a selection of his recent artwork. Meyer's work depicts mostly local farmstead scenes from the West River Valley. Of particular interest has been the Retreat Farm with its eclectic mix of barns and outbuildings. For years, Meyer focused on oil painting, but recently he made a change. “I wanted to get away from...
Brattleboro Museum & Art Center announced the imminent arrival of “Open Call NXNE 2018: Works on Paper,“ the Center's annual juried exhibit. The exhibit opens Saturday, Jan. 13, with a brunch reception at 11 a.m. that is free and open to all. More than 200 artists from New England and New York submitted work for consideration by juror Sique Spence of Nancy Hofmann Gallery. Spence selected 22 artists for inclusion in the exhibit. Their work encompasses drawing, printmaking, collage, watercolor,