On Nov. 13, approximately 50 people gathered at Brattleboro Union High School, forming a circle of understanding to address: “How are you personally affected by substance abuse in our community?”
This circle, which I had the pleasure of facilitating, was conceived and sponsored by the Brattleboro Restorative Justice Consortium, composed of representatives from Youth Services, the Brattleboro Community Justice Center, Brattleboro Union High School Restorative Justice Program, the Just Schools Project, and the Bellows Falls Community Restorative Justice Program.
This event had a two-fold purpose - to demonstrate how the use of a restorative circle process can effectively engage a community in a constructive dialogue and to connect people who are interested in proactively addressing substance abuse in our community.
Participants shared personal stories of how substance abuse had affected their lives:...
I'm happy to see this train-service upgrade. I would like to see this expansion eventually spur connecting diesel multiple unit/rail diesel car service between Lyndonville or St. Johnsbury and White River Junction. There might not be a market for a full-size train along that line, but there could be...
Reaching a milestone gives us reason to pause, be thankful, and reflect on the journey past and the road that lies ahead. In early November, Vermont Partnership celebrated a major milestone by completing the first decade of a four-decade initiative, Vermont Vision for a Multicultural Future. Formerly known as...
St. Michael's Episcopal Church, 16 Bradley Ave., celebrates this Advent and Christmas season with three special services. The public is warmly invited to these joyful events. • Annual Festival of Advent Lessons and Carols, Sunday, Dec. 14, 4 p.m. This ecumenical service, rooted in the great English choral tradition, combines music and scripture readings of the Advent Christmas Season in a beautiful, candle-lit setting. The 25 men and women of the St. Michael's Choir and guest musicians Alex Ogle, Goodrun...
The Putney Central School eighth-grade social studies class invites the public to “Portraits of Sustainability in Putney,” a public screening of short films that highlight members of their community whose work contributes to sustainability here. The screening is at Next Stage Arts Project, 15 Kimball Hill Road, on Thursday, Dec. 18, at 7 p.m. As part of their “Exploring Sustainability” curriculum, the Putney eighth-graders in Leah Toffolon's social studies class considered definitions of sustainability (which the Sustainable Schools Project of...
Obituaries • Donferd (Don) Berg, 86, of Westminster. Died Dec. 3 at his home. Husband of the late Joan Somerville Berg for 24 years. Father of Dana Berg and her husband. Michael Monhart, of New York City; Bettina Berg and her husband, Chris Harlow, of Westminster; and Amelia Berg of Seattle. Born in Dalton, Ohio, he was the youngest son of the late Ira and Laura Adams Berg of Dalton, Ohio. In 1951, he received a B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan...
Southwestern Vermont Community Action Program and the Vermont Center for Independent Living each received a $25,000 Housing Preservation Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to assist 20 Vermont families make essential improvements to their homes. “Lower-income rural families often have difficulty just meeting their daily living expenses, and they don't have enough income for housing upkeep and maintenance,” said USDA Rural Development New Hampshire and Vermont State Director Ted Brady, in a news release. “This USDA program provides funding...
Everyone's Books celebrates 30 years BRATTLEBORO - On Thursday, Dec. 11, from 3 to 6 p.m., Everyone's Books is throwing a 30th anniversary party and fundraiser at the shop on Elliot Street. They are also throwing a raffle with all proceeds going to the Overflow Shelter. Prices are $2 for one ticket or $4 for five tickets. First prize is a night at The One Cat Bed and Breakfast in downtown Brattleboro. Second prize is a $15 gift certificate, a...
Thank you to more than 100 amateur and professional artists who helped make the Windham Child Care Association's fourth annual Fall Into Art benefit a successful event, raising nearly $8,000. This year's silent auction event was again held at the All Souls Church in West Brattleboro on Oct. 17, with the assistance of Suzanne d'Corsey and Joy Wallens-Penford. Complementing the beautiful array of art was wonderful food from the Vermont Country Deli and the delightful sounds of Jazzberry Jam. A...
FamilyWize Community Service Partnership and United Way of Windham County are distributing 1,000 free flu shot vouchers provided by Walgreens. The vouchers are for families and individuals who are uninsured or underinsured, and otherwise unable to afford a flu shot without the voucher. The flu can have a significant impact on the lives of many, especially those with lower incomes and those who are either underinsured or not insured. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports parents spend $300...
Unless you're a hermit - if you are, I don't judge you - December is the time of year when most people cram themselves into each others' homes, demanding food and drinks. It's too cold to scream for ice cream, so most hungry guests shift their dairy request from the frozen to the fermented: They want cheese, and lots of it. Thus, if people are coming over, or if you are a guest visiting others, and you want everyone to...
Heartfelt thanks go out to the cast and crew of Vermont Theatre Company's recent production of “God of Carnage.” Director Jessa Rowan did a masterful job with her superb cast. She designed the simple but effective set as well. Stage Manager Brenda Seitz stayed on top of everything and kept all running smoothly (including lights and sound). Ira Wilner created his usual excellent lighting design. Set construction was handled by faithful VTC volunteers. Additional thanks go to Bob Kramsky and...
Friends of Music at Guilford's 42nd annual Christmas at Christ Church program is set for 8 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 12, and 4 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13. Christ Church is at the corner of Route 5 and Melendy Hill Road in the Algiers Village of Guilford. This season's theme for the program - “All My Heart Rejoices!” - is reflected in nine mostly familiar holiday song texts in unfamiliar arrangements by composers from the past five centuries, including Arthur...
Musicians living in and around Brattleboro who play tubas, sousaphones, and euphoniums are invited to present this year's edition of the annual TubaChristmas at the First Congregational Church on Sunday, Dec. 14. TubaChristmas began in 1974 to honor the late, great tubist William J. Bell, who was born Christmas Day, 1902. Every Christmas season, tuba and euphonium players of all ages gather to pay respect to Bell and honor their other teachers. Concerts are scheduled in more than 250 cities...
Main Street Arts has been awarded a Quality of Life Grant of $12,500 by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation toward funding the purchase and installation of an elevator to increase accessibility to its two-story building and theater. The community arts organization is in the midst of an $875,000 building renovation and expansion project that also includes accessible bathrooms, an exterior ramp, and other features designed to make the center's programs and performances available to all. The award was one...
On Sunday, Dec. 21, Simba continues its 25th year of playing together by celebrating the winter solstice. The annual music and dance party takes place at 7 p.m. at the Evening Star Grange in Dummerston Center. Join the band and your friends and neighbors in dance to light up the year's longest night. The band started by playing a 1989 benefit on the Brattleboro Common to shut down Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant; they called themselves the No Nukes Band.
The poor will be impacted by climate change to a far greater degree than the wealthy, though all will be affected. If the carbon fees are rebated to citizens, any price bubbles will be fully compensated for.
This letter essentially argues that taxing the rich will hurt the poor. Of course! It's long been wise to let the bullies bully and let the thieves steal. Anything thing else is dangerous optimism.
The multi-purpose building of the First Baptist Church on Main Street in downtown Brattleboro might need to be sold by the dwindling congregation. At an informational meeting on Nov. 23, the church members were made aware of this possibility because of rising costs and limited resources. The neo-gothic design building, built in 1867, with subsequent renovations and additions, serves the Brattleboro community not only as a place for worship - including ecumenical and interfaith services, for weddings, and for funerals...
Jesse Laflamme says his family's egg business was saved the first time by going organic, and then rescued again when the operation joined forces with the Organic Trade Association (OTA) to fight a regulation that he says would have had dire implications for its future. Laflamme, co-owner of Monroe, N.H.-based Pete & Gerry's Organic Eggs, is now a board member of OTA, and on Dec. 4 hosted an OTA-sponsored networking event here. The event highlighted challenges facing organic businesses in...
Search “falling dominoes” online, and you will be deluged with opportunities to watch videos, often set to music, of vast numbers of colorful tiles successively knocking one another over - extravagant examples of the original “domino effect.” The dominoes in these arrangements fall because they are subject to laws of nature. Physics and gravity might not yield the results observers expect every time, but their influence is there. The laws of nature take no time off. People with addiction are...
Janice Hutt squeezed her eyes shut against her tears. Her words sounded broken by her throat as she spoke to a small crowd of family and strangers. “We lost Bobby on Oct. 27, 2014,” she said. Hutt's brother was one almost 500 Vermont prisoners serving sentences in out-of-state, for-profit prisons. Bobby died in Vermont, but it was a long ordeal to get him back to the state, Hutt said. For more than a decade, the state has managed overcrowding in...
Many thanks to the generous and caring staff at Hannaford for making our shopping trip there such an enjoyable and successful event. We prepared 28 baskets, each of which provided a complete Thanksgiving dinner for a local family.
Another acquittal of a police officer in the killing of an innocent black man has occurred - innocent, unless one considers selling loose cigarettes a crime worthy of the death penalty. The big difference between this crime and the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., is that we can see the murder of Eric Garner again and again on video, in all its cruelty and depraved indifference to a plea for life. This latest judicial injury to black Americans...
Every day, a remarkable group of Vermonters performs a great labor of love: caring for aging parents, spouses, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and friends so they can remain in their homes. They are on duty 24/7, and often cannot take a break. Yet they wouldn't have it any other way. These caregivers are truly unsung heroes. To honor family caregivers, AARP has launched a new initiative to focus attention on their stories: “I Heart Caregivers.” Every caregiver has a story,
In addition to endorsing the West Brattleboro Bicycle Pedestrian Scoping Study on Nov. 18, the Brattleboro Selectboard heard or acted on a wide variety of issues, from finances to housing rehabilitation to public works jobs opening up. October finances show funds on track In new business, the Selectboard heard the October monthly finance report from Finance Director John O' Connor, according to whom, with 33.3 percent of the fiscal year complete, the total General Fund expenditures are 36.1 percent of...
Stephanie Bonin has offered Commons readers a couple of recipes for the winter season from the Duo kitchen. Creamed Brussels First, prepare the cream. Heat a pan with: ¶butter Add: ¶4 shallots Cook for 5 minutes until no color remains. Add: ¶2 Tablespoons flour Cook for 5 more minutes. Add: ¶1 cup dry vermouth Reduce by half. Add: ¶1 quart cream Simmer for 15 minutes. Whisk in: ¶1 cup Parmesan cheese Season with: ¶salt ¶pepper ¶nutmeg Clean and slice lengthwise:
Turning Point of Windham County has received three $20,000 awards through the state of Vermont that will help defray construction-related expenses for its new downtown home at 39 Elm St. Turning Point is hard at work completing required electrical, plumbing, and structural work for the move, and tells The Commons it hopes to announce an early 2015 move-in date in the coming weeks. The building the organization purchased in January was available for what it called “a bargain-basement price” largely...
While most kids wake up with excitement on a snow day, for working parents the announcement can bring stress. Meeting Waters YMCA has a solution. For the 14th consecutive year, the regional Y is offering its Snow Day Program in Brattleboro. The Snow Day Program will run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on days when schools are closed due to inclement weather. The program, based at Oak Grove School, offers indoor and outdoor physical activity, arts projects, and enrichment...
Tax season is right around the corner, and families with children who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) are eligible for an additional benefit they might not even be aware of - help with food expenses through 3SquaresVT. 3SquaresVT is Vermont's nutrition assistance program, designed to help households lacking sufficient resources meet their need for healthful, nutritious food. The program helps eligible households stretch their food budgets and put three square meals a day on the table, at...
As opening nights go you couldn't have asked for a more exciting, more satisfying beginning to a season than watching the Brattleboro Colonels boys' hockey team rally to a 4-3 win over the Burr & Burton Bulldogs on Dec. 3 at Withington Rink. These two teams don't like each other, and their games over the past few years have been chippy and penalty-filled. This game was no exception, with 13 total penalties in the game, including a couple of five-minute...
When you think of baking for the holidays, what comes to mind? Sugar cookies? Gingerbread houses? What comes to my mind is Patricia Austin. Patricia, a local Vermonter, has nurtured a passion for baking her entire life. Trained in classical French pastry techniques, she began her trade apprenticing under local icons Chuck Hornsby and Jeff Hamelman. She then ventured out, honing her skills over many years of passionate work. She traveled the world - including visiting Paris - only to...
In late September, a flock of 38 sheep, accompanied by shepherds, border collies, and one Maremma guard dog, walked more than seven miles from David Major's farm in Westminster West. Once they arrived at Putney Mountain - the most-often-visited natural area in the town (according to the 2010 survey taken by Putney's Conservation Commission) - the sheep quickly set themselves on a diet of glossy buckthorn. The invasive plant had overtaken the formerly bare summit. In short order, the sheep...
The group grew in numbers as it streamed down the sidewalk from the Municipal Center, down Main Street to Malfunction Junction. Parents held their toddlers by the hands, and a woman carried a sign that read, “Stop Cops.” A young man called “No Peace!” and the group responded “No Justice!” A small boy in a red jacket held a small sign printed in bold lettering: Black lives matter. The Dec. 5 march was the second in as many weeks to...
At the end of Shirley Squires's driveway sits a detached garage just a few feet from the kitchen entrance to her Guilford house. The garage used to have bays for two automobiles, but the left side now sports a people-sized door, not one for cars. An oval sign on the door reads “Shirley's Touch Of Heaven.” If, for you, “heaven” means Christmas decorations - twinkling lights, chubby Santa and Mrs. Claus, beautiful angels with flowing hair, snow-touched villages, and nativity...
Daisy, a friendly dog resembling a German Shepherd, walks with her owner through two temporary columns rigged with sensors to detect radiation contamination. She is one of 15 volunteers who participated as evacuees during a test of the state's reception center at the Bellows Falls Union High School, Dec. 4. Reception centers are part of the response by the state and by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to radiological emergencies. The centers take in people evacuated during a nuclear...
Brattleboro now has three operating breweries. Going by the 2010 census, that's one brewery for every 2,471 residents. I like the odds. The Hermit Thrush Brewery swung open its doors to the public for the first time at noon on Saturday, Nov. 22. I like to think it was my journalistic zeal that made me the first to walk through the door. But I might just have been thirsty for something a little different, which is exactly what the brewery...
“It's easier to point out what's not local on our menu than to say what is local,” says owner Stephanie Bonin, of Duo's recently released winter dinner and dessert menus. “Until the frost, about 70 percent of our produce was local,” Bonin tells The Commons, then notes the new seasonal menu at Brattleboro's newest farm-to-table restaurant features “more local than not” ingredients, such as squash and winter vegetables sourced from nearby farms, mostly through the restaurant's relationship with Windham Farm...
The day after last month's election, after I picked myself up from the floor and stopped pulling my hair out, I had a fantasy. It went like this: Michelle Obama walks to a podium, somber and clearly containing her anger. She pans the room, pauses, and says, “I'm going to take a risk. Many of you won't like what I have to say. My handlers will hate it. But I'm going to throw away my script and speak from the...
Next Stage Arts Project presents its first A Capella Holiday Concert and Dinner Extravaganza, featuring international a capella sensations The GrooveBarbers with special guests, The Putney Central School Chorus, on Friday, Dec. 12. Dinner is at 5:45 p.m. The show begins at 6:30. Bring the family for an evening of soup, song, and fun that will have your spirit soaring and your kids rushing to start their own vocal quartets as quick as you can say Wenceslaus. Join international a...