For more than 25 years, a “Thanksgiving Ingathering” in the Mascoma Valley has provided a box filled with food so our residents in need can have a Thanksgiving meal. The area churches — Community Lutheran Church, St. Helena Parish and St. Mary’s Mission, Mascoma Valley United Methodist Parish and Millbrook Christian Fellowship in Grafton, along with the Boy Scouts in the Mascoma Valley — have distributed bags to collect food donations, including canned goods, fresh bagged carrots, onions, turnips and squash, cereal, soups, pumpkin pie filling, peanut butter, stuffing mixes and cranberry sauce, and are collecting them this week. If you did not receive a bag for food donations, please feel free to bring food items to the Mascoma Valley United Methodist Fellowship Hall, 314 Route 4, in Enfield, on Saturday or Sunday, between 9 a.m. and noon. A container will be available outside should the church be closed.
We typically serve between 70 and 120 families each Thanksgiving. This year distribution will be on Sunday in the afternoon. Should you be in need, contact one of the named churches, senior center, town welfare officer or food pantry for a request form. We would be happy to meet your need.
Please join us in assisting neighbor families with a monetary donation or food. We wish you a blessed Thanksgiving.
Cheryl Sisson
Danbury/Grafton
The writer is the 2018 Thanksgiving Ingathering coordinator.
Nothing says “strength” as much as sending thousands of troops away from their families for the fall-winter holiday season when refugees are hundreds and hundreds of miles away and walking — on foot — toward our southern border, which means that they are weeks and weeks away from getting here — if they ever make it.
There is room for debate on issues surrounding those who present themselves at our borders. However, I cannot hold with the use of our military for an exercise that seems to be little more than “window dressing” since the group of people we are talking about cannot appear at our border for weeks.
Which leaves me with two thoughts: Our government is willing to give a false impression of “border security,” and it is willing to take our soldiers from their posts and families for a political purpose or, perhaps worse, to make a point or set a tone with no basis in fact.
I wish to challenge our thinking about people who walk to our borders. Most people circle the Walmart parking lot looking for a parking space closest to the front door. Who among us would consider walking 2,000 or more miles for anything?
Think about what it would take to get you on your feet, with only that which you could carry, and then walk every step of the way to California. Then think about these folks. Then think about our troops who are being sent on this seemingly gratuitous mission, especially at this time of holidays at the end of the year.
Why?
Karen R. Blum
Grantham
I am dismayed over the news from Pittsburgh, where a “loner” entered a synagogue and killed 11 worshipers. The shooter in this incident had an arsenal with multiple assault weapons designed to kill human beings.
This act was horrific, but the president’s response was, too. As reported in Time magazine, in response to a question about whether the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue should spark questions of increased gun control, Donald Trump said: “If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better. If they had some kind of protection within the temple it could have been a much better situation. They didn’t.”
It was a point he made repeatedly. According to Time, he later added: “This is a case where if they had an armed guard inside they may have been able to stop him immediately, maybe there would have been nobody killed, except for him maybe.”
Is this America today? Are we a nation where every place of worship is now supposed to hire a “good guy with a gun” to protect itself from an individual whose right to own an assault weapon designed to kill humans must be protected? If houses of worship are expected to have armed guards so that any person can buy any kind of firearm he or she desires, are we moving to a police state?
I fear that we already know the answer to that question. As reported on NextBigFuture.com, in 2016, private police outnumbered public police by a ratio of 5-to-1. “Specific occupations within security, like private detectives, investigators and security guards, are all expected to see growth of around 20 percent through the end of the decade, far outpacing the average for all other jobs,” it noted.
At that time, private security was a $35 billion industry. I am certain we are spending more now, and I do not believe our country is better off as a result.
Wayne Gersen
Etna
I’ve been saddened to see that my native state of Vermont is losing its young people to areas with more opportunity. Census figures indicate that nearly 20 percent of the population is now 65 years old or older, and that demographic is growing. Farms and other businesses grapple with unfilled jobs. State government’s proposed solutions seem tepid at best.
So, where to turn?
I’m tempted to ask: What would Fred Tuttle — “The Man With a Plan” — say? (I shouldn’t assume we all know or remember Fred. It’s well worth a Google search if you don’t.)
Fred gave us a lot of Vermont Yankee wisdom. Here’s my take on what he might suggest:
“Way I see it, supply n’ demand, pure n’ simple. You got a couple thousand hungry desperate folks headed for the southern U.S. border lookin’ for a safe place to live and make somethin’ of themselves. Instead of spendin’ a lot a taxpayers’ money to send thousands of troops down there, how ’bout issuing a blanket asylum and bring ’um up here to Vermont and offer ’um those jobs we’re tryin’ to fill. ’Stead of seeing rifle barrels, let ’um see education, training and yes, basic needs for a new start. I figure all that these would-be employee-taxpayers need is just what America used to offer (and still can).”
(Full disclosure: I now live in New Hampshire but was born and grew up in Bellows Falls.)
Ralph Patalano
Plainfield
As a 27-year resident of the Upper Valley, unlike Steve Nelson, I take extreme offense at the tone and content of his recent diatribe (“The Reality Is Far Worse Than Anyone Thought,” Nov. 4).
Republicans are evil, and vote Democratic at all costs? This from a privileged part-time Vermonter who also lives in Boulder, Colo., and was head of school at The Calhoun School, an ultra-privileged private school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Nelson loves to preach to the uneducated. At Calhoun he did not want to fly the American flag after 9/11. Apparently he sympathized with the 15 of 19 terrorists from our “ally” Saudi Arabia.
I stopped reading his self-aggrandizing rants when he wrote about the horror of seeing Vermont deer hunters wearing pistols in holsters during deer season. He is so misinformed that he apparently did not realize they were obeying Vermont law. He probably prefers the hidden guns used daily by criminals in New York City, but out of his privileged sight.
I am ready to stop reading the Valley News entirely if you continue publishing such offensive rubbish.
Jonathan Vincent
Norwich
Hartford Patrol Officer Sean Fernandes went beyond the call of duty recently by attending our 6-year-old grandson Richard’s birthday. It should be noted that Richard’s lifelong desire is to be a “hero in blue” — a policeman. The short visit by Fernandes, besides making a little boy very happy, has made an indelible impression on Richard for life. As we approach the Thanksgiving season, Fernandes did not underestimate the power of his action that afternoon — that one small gesture changed a young person’s life.
We should all reach out during this Thanksgiving season (and at all times) and remember how dedicated and selfless our police are to us — to both young and old.
Richard and Jane Reece
Quechee