I have been a certified nurse midwife for seven years, and I have lived in Vermont for that entire time. As a midwife I have taken care of hundreds of families. I have caught babies in small community hospitals as well as large tertiary care centers.
But when it came time to have my own three babies, I chose to give birth outside of a hospital. I knew, from my professional experience, that hospitals - while important and safe places to give birth for many - are not universally necessary.
Giving birth outside of a hospital does not always mean giving birth at home. Many people choose a third option: a freestanding birth center. Freestanding birth centers are homelike facilities that are typically staffed by midwives. They are different from the birth centers inside hospitals. They take care of medically uncomplicated, or “low risk,” people.
And Vermont is one of only eight states in the country that doesn't have a single freestanding birth center in the entire state.
I'm writing in response to Joyce Marcel's interview with State Treasurer Mike Pieciak on divestment of fossil fuels from our state's pension funds. As a retired school teacher with a pension in the Vermont State Teachers Retirement System, I have a personal financial interest in this. As a citizen...
A lot has happened with EMS in Brattleboro over the past year, too much to put into a brief letter. I've heard a number of different versions, but as yet I have not heard anyone say things have gone well. When things don't go well, it makes sense to...
The federal Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 ends extra 3SquaresVT benefits in March 2023. According to a news release from the Vermont Department for Children and Families (DCF), the extra 3SquaresVT payment, officially called “emergency maximum allotment,” has been a temporary increase from the federal government to help those affected by the pandemic and did not permanently change a household's monthly benefit. This extra help began in March 2020 due to the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act and have...
On March 11, 12 years will have passed since the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex - a meltdown that happened as the result of a massive tsunami. The natural disaster should not have been surprising due to Japan's location within what geologists call the “Ring of Fire,” a powerful designation of the area around the Pacific Ocean where seismic activity is endemic - which makes the Pacific shoreline of Japan a very poor spot to build numerous...
Winter tree identification walkWEST TOWNSHEND - A winter tree identification walk is planned for Saturday, March 11. Michael Longo, Sally Newton, and others offer an opportunity to share knowledge and become familiar with the local tree species even when they have no leaves. Meet at 2 p.m. at the West Townshend Country Store on Route 30 and carpool or caravan to the location. They are tentatively planning to walk near the old air strip on Ball Mountain in Jamaica. Depending...
The Harris Hill Ski Jump Competition needs to become a fond memory of the past - a memory of Vermont when we had enough snow in the winter to cover the jump and the target zone. When people had to bundle up to be spectators, oohing and ahhing at the amazing feat of those bold athletes flying through the air at 60 mph and managing to land safely. In this time of a global climate crisis, making snow for a...
It pains me to write, again, that the United States still fuels the Saudi/United Arab Emirates war machine, enabling its attacks on Yemen. Come March, we'll mark eight full years. Eight years of unconstitutional U.S. military involvement in Yemeni starvation and destruction, while legislators, activists, more than 100 organizations in this country and 300 others worldwide demand an end to this illegal war. Yemen is not even an enemy of the U.S. Yet we've helped the Saudis subject the country...
College news • Kim Amidon of Vernon, Nicholas Douglass of Saxtons River, Venus Fu of Brattleboro, and Abigail Sargent of Dummerston were all named to the fall 2022 Dean's List at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. • The following local students at Northern Vermont University honored for academic excellence in the fall 2022 semester: Gregory Fitzgerald of Brattleboro, and Tysea Kurjiaka and Eva Paré of Londonderry were named to the President's List, while Samantha Martin and Fiona Perez...
The Brattleboro Literary Festival invites everyone to join them on Friday, March 10, at 5 p.m., when their Literary Cocktail Hour presents Helene Stapinski and Bonnie Siegler to discuss their book The American Way: A True Story of Nazi Escape, Superman, and Marilyn Monroe. Register to join this online conversation at bit.ly/LitCocktail28. In this real-life adventure, the publisher of DC Comics comes to the rescue of a family trying to flee Nazi Berlin, their lives linking up with a cast...
The Estey Organ Museum will provide a creative singing and musical history experience, as well as bring the many health benefits of singing for seniors in Windham County starting this May for seven weeks of musical classes. No singing experience is required, and the program is free for adults aged 60 and older. According to a news release, a Creative Aging Grant from the Vermont Arts Council, supporting community-building in and through the arts for older adults in Vermont, was...
Four new exhibits open at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) on Saturday, March 11, with an opening reception at 11 a.m. “The highlighted artists probe some of the most fundamental aspects of human experience,” say organizers, “including how we connect and relate to one another and to ourselves.” Mental health, immigration, ritual, and memory take center stage. These new exhibitions join “Keith Haring: Subway Drawings,” which remains on view through April 16. The opening reception, will feature many...
For 30 years, I've been a member of the Putney Friends, or Quaker, congregation. Thus, my curiosity was piqued, reading in The Commons about a local group named Friends of Putney, in regard to the proposal to build much-needed housing in Putney on Alice Holway Drive. I wondered: Are they as dedicated to social justice work as Quakers/Friends? Were they walking in the same light as John Woolman when he started his abolition work in the mid-18th century - or...
The Sarasa Ensemble returns to the Brattleboro Music Center Saturday, March 18. The 7 p.m. performance, part of the BMC Season Guest Concert Series, is “All About My Mother.” Taking its title from Pedro Almodóvar's 1999 film, this program offers a musical reflection on the many facets of motherhood and the impact of her presence during life's various celebrations, rituals, and trials. The program will include Matthew Locke's “Fantasy” from Suite No. 5 in G minor from “Consort of Four...
Affinities, a series of assemblages by Bonnie Mennell, is on exhibit until Saturday, May 20, at the Putney Public Library, 55 Main St. Mennell's exhibition includes disparate elements: found objects, recombinations of natural forms enhanced with color and texture, and handmade paper embedded with corn husks and mica, seaweed, shells, and paper birch bark. “Objects find me,” Mennell said in a news release. “Their beauty, form, textures, and colors draw me to them. I collect them, asking permission and giving...
The Brattleboro Women's Chorus welcomes new members to sing with them for the spring semester. The Chorus welcomes anyone ages 10 and up who identifies as female or non-binary, and whose vocal range comfortably includes the A in the middle of the treble staff. All abilities are welcome and no auditions are required. Their first two rehearsals, March 16 or 17 and 23 or 24, are open to new singers to attend and see if it is a good fit...
While global attention over the past year has been focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing humanitarian crisis it has created, a group of activists took time on March 1 to remind people of another ongoing humanitarian caused by war. About 20 people took part in a vigil in front of the Post Office to call for an end to U.S. participation in Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen. The Brattleboro vigil, one of 13 that took place...
Ninth-grade students in the Global Citizenship class at Bellows Falls Union High School took a unique route toward learning about justice on the international stage this school year. They used art. More specifically, they designed and painted a mural in the school entry hall this past fall with the help of Afghanistan political refugee and artist Negina Azimi. John Ungerleider, director of the Great Falls Community Justice Center, also helped organize the project. Teacher Laura Tabachnick described the month-long mural...
Drawing Out the Wisdom of the Past is among the goals of a series of free workshops being offered in Saxtons River for seniors through a collaboration between Main Street Arts, 24 Main, and the Saxtons River Historical Society. A kickoff luncheon to introduce the program and to sign up participants will be held Friday, March 10, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the dining room at 24 Main (the former Christ's Church). Workshops will take place on Fridays, March...
Suzanne Ciani, one of the first innovators in the composition of electronic music, will appear in Brattleboro on Thursday, March 9, to play a live quadraphonic concert at Epsilon Spires. This will be Ciani's first performance in New England in five years, and her only scheduled appearance in the eastern half of the United States until a 10-day residency this fall at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Jamie Mohr, executive director of Epsilon Spires, says in...
The Landmark College Academic Speaker Series welcomes syndicated cartoonist Hilary Price to campus on Tuesday, March 14, at 5 p.m., in the Brooks M. O'Brien Auditorium, located in the Lewis Academic Building. Price's talk, entitled “How I Became a Cartoonist: A Study in Messing Up,” will include insights about how she gets ideas for her award-winning comic strip “Rhymes with Orange,” makes comics, and lives a creative life. “Rhymes with Orange” debuted in 1995, making Price the youngest woman to...
Getting to the Barre Municipal Auditorium (“The Aud”) is an accomplishment for any basketball team. It's also a much tougher task to win at this historic venue as well. The third-seeded Leland & Gray Rebels girls' basketball team got a case of the Aud jitters on March 1, and the result was a tough semifinal loss to the second-seeded Blue Mountain Bucks, 65-43. According to Leland & Gray Head Coach Terry Merrow, it was the first time since 2017 when...
Time to hang a new banner in the BUHS gym. The Brattleboro Colonels varsity bowling team won its first-ever Division I state championship on March 5 in Colchester. Even sweeter, they beat Essex, the Chittenden County school that has broken Colonels fans hearts in so many different sports. The starting lineup for the top-seeded Colonels consisted of Jacob Girard, Dorien Phillips, Kelton Mager, Tucker Sargent, and Thomas Bell, with Charlie Forthofer as a spare. The first opponent was Fair Haven...
The sixth-seeded Brattleboro Colonels fought valiantly to the end in the Division I boys' basketball semifinals, but second-seed Rice played on another level from start to finish, eliminating the Colonels and their title hopes on March 6 at the University of Vermont's Patrick Gymnasium, 76-49. Rice is the defending Division I state champions and they played like it from the opening tipoff. The Green Knights got off to an 11-0 lead in the first minutes of play. Cam Frost and...
For more than a month, members of the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union (WNESU) community have told school officials they don't want Principal John Broadley to leave. An online petition to keep Broadley in his current role had more than 1,020 signatures as of March 3. But the principal - who told the school board last month that he would not renew his role at Bellows Falls Union High School - apparently doesn't want to talk about it. At a March...
Audiences in the region can meet Casey Metcalfe in person when he emcees a special screening of Champions on Sunday, March 12 at 4 p.m. at the Latchis Theatre, 50 Main St. Cost of the special screening fundraiser will be $25 for a raffle and a movie ticket, $20 for a raffle ticket only, or $7 for the screening only. Raffle prizes are a basketball signed by Metcalfe and the film's other cast members, as well as movie posters signed...
Town Meeting Day always has a festive air about it at the Putney Central School gymnasium. The eighth-graders set up a table filled with homemade treats for sale as a fundraiser for their class trip. Information tables from the town library, the Conservation Commission, the Putney Foodshelf, and other nonprofits take up the outer edges of one half of the gym, right across from the voting booths. The other half of the gym, divided by a large curtain, is devoted...
Results of the fall school climate survey show some areas of school life have improved slightly since spring 2022. On Feb. 28, Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) school board directors heard an initial presentation and summary of results based on a survey from Panorama Education, which offers the assessing tool “to improve educational outcomes with a holistic view of student data.” Presenter Dr. Chris Overtree, a psychologist hired by the District in February 2022 to help with the process, said...
“There's plenty more food, please take more,” called a Whitingham Ladies Benevolent Society member as Town Meeting attendees chatted with neighbors and ate a meal of homemade lasagna, salad, and pies in the Twin Valley Middle High School cafeteria. Annual Town Meeting began with a presentation by Rep. Tristan Roberts, D-Halifax. It ended with applause for Selectboard Office Administrator Gib Zaboray, who worked to bring in $1 million in grant funding to repair the town's two aging sewer plants. Voters...
Incumbent Selectboard member Elizabeth McLoughlin held on to her three-year seat, while newcomers Peter “Fish” Case and Franz Reichsman won one-year seats on the board in the March 7 town election. Meanwhile, voters rejected a referendum on “just cause” eviction in a 1,221-656 vote. All the Selectboard races were close. McLoughlin won her second three-year term over former board member Dick DeGray, 1,005–920. McLoughlin told The Commons last month that she sees the greatest challenges for Brattleboro in the next...
Casey Metcalfe - formerly of Putney and Brattleboro, currently of Burlington - poses with flair in front of a promotional poster. With his snazzy hat just akilter over a telling smile, it's clear that a dream has come true. Metcalfe, now 27, landed a role in Champions, a Focus Films feature-length movie to be released Friday, March 10, with a special Brattleboro showing Sunday, March 12. (See sidebar.) Building off the 2018 Spanish film of the same name - Campeones...
When I saw the headline to Selectboard candidate Peter “Fish” Case's letter, I felt a spark of hope: “People are hurting right now,” the header read, “and it's possible to stop it.” Could he be referring to the fact that now, in the dead of winter, the homeless shelters are full and our neighbors are left shivering on the streets and sleeping in tents? Or perhaps he's addressing the fact that we have lost so many of our beloved friends...