It's the time of year again when the Windham County Heat Fund reminds all of the generous people in the county that our less-fortunate friends and neighbors will need your help once again as we approach another heating season.
The Windham County Heat Fund was created in 2005 by Richard Davis and me to help people in Windham County, Vt. who are not able to buy enough heating fuel to make it through the winter. We do not give money directly to individuals, but we pay for fuel directly to fuel dealers.
In 2010, when the Heat Fund was incorporated as an IRS tax-deductible, tax-exempt non-profit entity, oil prices were escalating, and we thought our efforts would only be needed for a year or two.
Over the years, we have come to learn that there is a constant need to supplement state and federal fuel assistance programs for those who fall through the cracks and for those who run out of fuel-assistance allotments.
Wilmington Works presents the third annual Wilmington Women's Weekend on Oct. 26 and 27. Organizers say this yearly celebration offers women a chance to come together and enjoy a day or weekend getaway at their own pace in a quintessential Vermont village. The weekend begins with a marketplace of...
The Brattleboro Union High School Players will present Tom Stoppard's absurd comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead on Friday, Oct. 18, and Saturday, Oct. 19, at 7 p.m. in the BUHS Auditorium. Admission is $5 at the door. This is a play where nothing happens, but it happens elaborately.
The documentary, From Shock to Awe (2018), will be screened at Epsilon Spires, 190 Main St., on Friday, Oct. 25, at 7 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. According to a news release, “From Shock to Awe asks, 'how do we heal our deepest wounds?'” The film follows Matt Kahl and Mike Cooley, two combat veterans struggling to live with PTSD as they turn away from pharmaceutical dependency...
At one time, unions were common in America, but they have been busted and dwindled as “right to work” legislation has diminished union shops. In 1954, an estimated 35 percent of U.S. workers belonged to unions and in 2018 only 10.7 percent do. Fortunately, the Brattleboro Food Co-op has the benefit of being a union shop. Though a cooperative, there is a need for a union. A union is only as effective and strong as the stewards willing to step...
The new Brattleboro Music Center has won several design awards, and so has been selected as the site of the annual meeting of the Vermont Chapter of the American Institute of Architects on Thursday, Oct. 17. The BMC campus design received the 2018 American Institute of Architects-Maine Award for Design Excellence. The jury of architects described the project as “a great example of how to do more with less to elevate the function and mission of an important organization ...
Regular Thursday Night Bingo returns to Compass School again this year to continue the fundraising efforts of Compass School's 11th grade class. Every year, Compass 11th graders participate together in an international trip to a Spanish speaking country in the developing world. Compass is committed to ensuring every student can go on this trip, regardless of family income. With more than 50 percent of Compass students eligible for free and reduced lunch, fundraising is essential to ensure everyone can take...
Southeastern Vermont Community Action and Granite United Way of NH are partnering to offer the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program (VITA) in upper Windham and Windsor counties. The program helps low- to moderate- income households by providing free federal and state income tax return preparation services. SEVCA is now recruiting volunteers for the upcoming 2019 tax filing season to help as many families as possible claim the tax credits and refunds available to them. SEVCA is looking for individuals who...
Windham Grows, a project of Strolling of the Heifers, is the recipient of the Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility Innovation and Inspiration Award. Orly Munzing, founder of Strolling of the Heifers, accepted the award at the 18th Annual VBSR Awards Ceremony and Dinner on Sept. 25. Munzing developed the pioneering Windham Grows Food and Agriculture Business Accelerator. According to a news release, the program is a socially responsible food and agriculture business accelerator that provides a cohort experience and critical...
Marlboro College's Snyder Center for the Visual Arts will host The Local, a series of photographs by Greenfield, Mass.-based photographer Nick Meyer. The series will be exhibited in the Snyder Gallery through Nov. 15, with an artist's talk on Nov. 8, and is free and open to the public. Meyer's images in The Local serve as a poignant portrait of the Greenfield community he lives in, imaging the economic insecurity and opioid abuse that affect the lives of its locals,
What started as a shortage of nurses at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital led to a new training program at the Community College of Vermont/Vermont Tech campus in the Brooks House. At the launch of a series of regional summits planned to address the state's workforce shortage on Oct. 3, representatives from BMH, CCV, and the Vermont Department of Labor (VDOL) shared their experience in creating a variety of training programs, including ones for medical assistants and environmental services, and preparation courses...
Transitions • Gaurav Chawla, MD, has been appointed the new chief medical officer (CMO) at The Brattleboro Retreat. Dr. Chawla served as CMO at Providence Behavioral Health Hospital in Holyoke, Mass., where he has worked since 2012 in various roles including Chief of Psychiatry and Medical Director of Child and Adolescent Services. He began his official duties at the Retreat on Sept. 30. He is a certified physician executive who received his medical degree from Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College in...
On Friday, Oct. 18, at 7:30 p.m., Vermont Academy will hold a special screening of the documentary, Angst, at the Nita Choukas Theater in its Horowitz Performing Arts Center to create a dialogue between parents, children, community leaders, and experts on the subject of anxiety. The event, which is open to the public as well as the VA community, will feature a viewing of the 56-minute film, followed by an informative discussion led by a panel of local health experts.
Boys & Girls Club hosts Let's Read 2019 eventBRATTLEBORO - Local youth will present a staged reading of Ann Braden's book, The Benefits of Being an Octopus, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, at 6:30 p.m., at the Boys & Girls Club of Brattleboro as part of the Let's Read 2019 community reading initiative. Youth-led discussion groups will follow the staged reading. Come hear local youth bring this story to life and share how this powerful book by a local author has...
Rockabilly Hall of Fame recording artist Marty Wendell will perform as the final show in the 2019 Wardsboro Curtain Call Music Series at Wardsboro Town Hall on Saturday, Oct. 19. Musically weaned on an old Philco radio, the veteran singer-songwriter from Ticonderoga, N.Y., says he grew up whetting an appetite for rockabilly, folk, country, and pop to blues and gospel. Influenced by the legendary Sun Records artists like Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash, Wendell entered a church talent show where...
At this year's Brattleboro Literary Festival, more than 55 authors of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry will delve into the rich - and, sometimes, contentious - theme of identity. “To survive in the world, you need to know who you are and where you come from,” said festival founder Sandy Rouse. Rouse said that at this year's festival - the 18th - the literary works presented will focus on identity, from the personal, to the communal, to the global. The festival...
In what is beginning to look like an annual event, the Northeast Fiddlers Association will host a fiddle meet at the Bellows Falls Moose Club from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20. Fiddlers and non-fiddlers alike are invited to a very sociable afternoon. An NEFA meet always begins at noon with a tune circle. As fiddlers arrive, they sign up on a numbered list and then, if they wish, join the circle. In the circle, people take turns choosing...
Someone you know might be an addict; in fact, you might love an addict yourself. Addiction to illegal substance - yes, drugs - destroys families. Using is personal to each individual, who often believes their actions affect only themselves. That is not surprising, because addiction to drugs is often described as an egocentric disease. As the user destroys their life, those people around them are drawn into the insanity. Thus, they become “sick,” too. For the addict, hope is on...
The Hinsdale Historical Society has announced plans to restore the Anna Marsh Music Room at the historical Col. Ebenezer Hinsdale House in Hinsdale. The Col. Ebenezer Hinsdale House was built in 1759 by Col. Ebenezer Hinsdale. It is a classic, three-bedroom, 18th century homestead set on 37 acres of farmland and forestland with frontage on the Connecticut River. The homestead was sold to Dr. Perley Marsh and his wife Anna Hunt Marsh in 1789 by Hinsdale's nephew Judge Daniel Jones.
Windham Solid Waste Management District is hosting household hazardous waste collection events at two locations on Saturday, Oct. 19, from 8 a.m. until noon. One event is being held at the WSWMD Transfer Station, 327 Old Ferry Road, Brattleboro; the other event is at the Stratton Transfer Station, 9 W. Jamaica Road, Stratton. The collection events are open to residents in WSWMD member towns: Brattleboro, Brookline, Dover, Dummerston, Guilford, Halifax, Jamaica, Marlboro, Newfane, Putney, Readsboro, Somerset, Stratton, Townshend, Vernon, Wardsboro,
In “A Beautiful Journey,” a series of storytelling events showcasing people who live with, or are impacted by, substance-use disorder (SUD), storytellers share parts of their life stories with community members who want to hear firsthand what it's like to live through the destructive brain disease known as addiction. Hosted by the Turning Point of Windham County, this series focuses not only on what can lead a person to rely on substances, living a life of isolation and despair, but...
I spent the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur doing a practice called Tashlikh, where you go to the river or other body of water and throw in bread; though I threw sticks, rocks, and leaves so as not to disrupt the water source. In my Jewish community, the tradition is that as you throw, you think of something that you need to let go of and you ask “god” - or the river, or whatever you believe...
Deborah Lee Luskin was “frightened” that the grand opening of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brattleboro “would be marred by some horrendous act of violence.” Hey, Deborah: Do you even care that abortion is a horrendous act of violence? Instead, you attended this “celebration” of murder. Because that's what abortion is: murder. Which is why I thank God for Lila Rose (anti-abortion activist and founder of Live Action). The intolerant Left despises her because she has been exposing Planned Parenthood's...
Hello and good day to you, residents of lovely Windham County, Vermont! I hope things are well with you. The foliage certainly has been more plentiful and beautiful this season compared to the last couple of years. This has been supported by the last half of summer bringing sunnier periods along with cooler, drier nights. As for the next week, our fair weather stretch is waning rapidly with the anticipated development of a powerful Nor'easter tracking through southeastern New England...
A new literary magazine that will challenge “popular (mis)perceptions of rural communities by supporting the visibility and creative aspirations of rural LGBTQ and POC writers and artists” will mark its launch with a party on Saturday, Oct. 19 with Touché, a tournament-style game show. “I wanted to celebrate our contributors and invite the community into our work through play, in a way that could welcome folks who might not otherwise go to a 'literary' event,” said Desmond Peeples, creator and...
On Sunday, Oct. 20, at 5 p.m., the Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro will present “From Bach to Bossa Nova,” the debut concert of a new musical ensemble, aptly named Musica Eclectica. The concert is a benefit for the Luz del Mundo Scholarship Fund, which assists students in Apopa, El Salvador, with costs of tuition, uniforms, and supplies. The new ensemble Musica Eclectica, in its initial formation, is a trio of multi-instrumentalists and vocalists with multiple musical specialties: Jesse Lepkoff...
Next Stage Arts Project will present a double bill with instrumentalists Ben Cosgrove and Mark Kroos at Next Stage on Friday, Oct. 18, at 7:30 p.m. Ben Cosgrove is a pianist whose music explores themes of landscape, place, and environment in North America. He has performed nationally and held artist residencies and fellowships with institutions including the National Park Service, the National Forest Service, Harvard University, Middlebury College, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, and the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology.
The Agency of Transportation intends to repave 12.5 miles of Route 9 between Wilmington and Brattleboro starting in 2021, an undertaking described by the state agency's program manager, Jesse Devlin, as “one of the more complex projects” on the horizon. The $14 million project was discussed Oct. 4 at a meeting organized by Windham County lawmakers, who invited AOT staff to Marlboro to hear from a group of citizens concerned about southern Vermont's primary east-west travel corridor. There, community members...
Don McLean is producing a staged reading by Guilford Center Stage that asks a timely question: Could it happen here? “Timely” may be an odd word for a work based on a semi-satirical political novel written in 1935 during the heyday of fascism in Europe. The production by Guilford Center Stage is an adaptation for the stage by Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen of It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. However, McLean believes the work has resonances for...
The duo Emma's Revolution will present a concert to benefit the Community Asylum Seekers Project Friday, Oct. 25, at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church at 7:30 p.m. Emma's Revolution is the dynamic, award-winning activist duo of Pat Humphries and Sandy O, whose songs have been sung for the Dalai Lama, covered by Holly Near, and praised by Pete Seeger. With beautiful harmonies and genre-defying eclecticism, the performance will include tributes to Seeger, a friend and mentor. CASP is currently hosting...
Teams have tried and failed this season to find a way to slow down the high-powered offense of the undefeated Brattleboro Colonels football team. Although Fair Haven ultimately lost to the Colonels, 41-7, at Natowich Field on Oct. 11, the Slaters may have provided some clues for Brattleboro's future opponents. The Colonels entered this game with an amazing stat - courtesy of Reformer Sports Editor Shane Covey - Brattleboro had not trailed in a game since falling behind 19-0 against...
Archer Mayor titled his latest Joe Gunther novel, Bomber's Moon, as almost a warning: Be careful what you wish for. The phrase “bomber's moon” originated during World War II and referred to the full moon, which made night-targeting during air raids easier for pilots, the Newfane-based mystery author told a rapt audience that filled Bartleby's Books on Oct. 12. But, Mayor cautioned, the moonlight was a mixed blessing. If the bombers could see targets better, then so, too, could the...
In honor of Community Media Day on Oct. 20, Brattleboro Community Television announces its producer awards winners for 2019. BCTV's annual producer awards ceremony will be held on Thursday, Oct. 24, at 6 p.m. at 118 Elliot. The public is invited. The People's Choice Award winner, which is a popular vote among the year's top-viewed videos, will also be announced that night. The following organizations and individuals will be recognized for their achievements during the past fiscal year: • Community...
Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center, 1223 Bonnyvale Rd., will present its annual Forest of Mystery with “The Witch's Turn,” written and directed by James and Jessica Gelter on Oct. 24, 25, and 26 (rain date is Oct. 27). BEEC's Forest of Mystery happens each year around Halloween with the aid of a group of talented community actors, dancers, and musicians, as well as inventive costume and set designers. This interactive theatrical performance with an environmental message takes place in scenes staged...
For a couple of years I was living on the south coast of Iceland, and one day, a man knocked on the door of my home. He asked if I wanted to see something. No adjectives. Just, did I want to see something? I almost didn't hear his knock. My house was on the extreme southeastern coast of the island - literally 20 feet from the sea - and strong winds were bashing the concrete walls and making the tin...