As an AVA board member and artist tenant, I read the Sunday Valley News article “Arts Venues Improvise” (July 12) with interest. I was puzzled that AVA Gallery and Art Center was barely mentioned and wanted to update you on what is happening.
Though AVA’s building and galleries are closed for the time being, the organization is humming with activity. With the Paycheck Protection Program, and especially through the generosity of AVA’s donors to our Here to There Fund, no staff member was furloughed.
AVA’s quarterly, live storytelling event, The Mudroom, has been held twice via Zoom. Almost 300 households around the country tuned in to hear stories from the Upper Valley. The Mudroom, with a theme of “Change,” is planned for Sept. 10.
Our Monday-morning fiber art program with Meredith Smith moved online promptly after the state shutdown order. AVA’s Thursday Senior Art program has, by popular demand, expanded to Monday and Thursday mornings via Zoom. This has been especially helpful to maintain a sense of community among the population most vulnerable to COVID-19, at no charge to participants.
Online classes and workshops for adults and teens have attracted students nationally and continue throughout the summer at affordable prices, and with scholarships available, making our online classes and camps a safe and inexpensive way to have fun this summer. Online innovations have provided our families with more affordability and maximum flexibility this summer. Camp fees are per family and provide kids with a menu of classes until Aug. 21; pop-up classes have been added at no additional fee to enrolled families. An extensive “Art Kit” provides campers with everything needed for the summer for a nominal fee.
Our Instagram page is an online exhibition of what our artists are creating. AVA also partnered with Three Tomatoes Trattoria to facilitate the murals, painted by local high school students, that grace its outdoor dining venue.
The innovative energy and vitality of AVA Gallery and Art Center is as strong — and as necessary to the community — as ever, in whatever form it needs to get us from here to there.
HELEN SHULMAN
Lebanon
It is a shame that the two Valley News articles about Hanover Town Meeting failed to mention that residents voted a resounding “yes” on Article 26, supporting national “Medicare for All.” The voters instructed our representatives in Congress — Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and Rep. Annie Kuster — to vote in support of the Medicare for All bills that are currently pending.
I can empathize that the stories focused on the contested budget items, but I think it is regrettable that the stories did not shine a light on Hanover voters’ belief that our current health care system is woefully expensive and unfair, resulting in unconscionable outcomes for Americans and exorbitant profits for the insurance industry and Big Pharma.
DONALD KOLLISCH
Hanover
At Kennedy Pond in Windsor recently, I was horrified to see a small child, only about age 1, being carried far out into the pond on an inner tube. She wore no life jacket and her mother rode only on the cheapest sort of inner tube. It was partly sunk by their weight and a man in a larger tube was dragging it. They were maybe 75 yards out, and far away from the roped-in, lifeguard-protected area.
The woman then rocked the man’s tube, perhaps in fun, causing it to capsize. The man yelled an obscenity and fell in the water. Naturally, this caused a wave to splash back, and the child was struck in the face. She cried out and kept on crying while the woman laughed and lifted her up and down as if they were playing, even though they were on a thin plastic tube far from the shore, and much farther from the lifeguard.
I was horrified. If carrying a small child out on the water without a life jacket is not illegal, it is certainly foolish. An accident there could happen fast, and could easily be lethal.
As the mother tried to “jolly along” this small child, the child cried and cried. It was obvious the child knew this was not “fun” and that she was not safe.
According to the World Health Organization, 320,000 people globally are drowned in accidents each year, which is considered a significant underestimate. And those most apt to die are between 1-4 years of age. In the U.S, the second-most common cause of accidental death for this same age group is also drowning. Even in inland and northern states, we all need to learn, understand and apply rules for water safety. We need to get this.
CECELIA BLAIR
Windsor
So much good news: I applaud New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu’s interpretation that requiring a business to meet the health needs of a family is a tax. I ask him to join the effort to remove the highly taxing requirement on business to provide health insurance.
I look forward to hearing all those who say “all lives matter” saying “happy holidays” this December.
I am extremely encouraged by the Republican concern for children who lack internet access and home resources, and expect the next coronavirus relief package to provide enough funds targeted to those schools and localities to have equal access to education. Similar to rural electrification, this country has now acknowledged that the internet is a public utility and it needs to be available to all. Since Republicans are equally concerned about the need for certain of those children obtain food through their school, I am sure they will support an increase funding for food stamps.
I applaud the Supreme Court’s holding that I do not have to pay the portion of any government tax that is spent on religious schools, due to my strongly held religious belief.
I applaud the current national conversation about the role of traditional police. Violence will not go away, and it needs to be met with people trained to use appropriate physical force in response. However, the threats to our health and to our property are now coming from other sources. The nation does not have an effective response to internet scams and robo-call scams. That’s where the criminals have gone because that’s where the money is. The elderly are having friends and family cheat them of their resources, again because that’s where the money is. Drug use, including alcohol, is a health issue and needs to be addressed as such. We need to align our community protection resources to the current threats.
LANEA A. WITKUS
Newport
While in the Army many years ago, I was sent to Richmond, Va., for a brief period. It was my first time there, and while walking around the city I came to the statue of Robert E. Lee (it’s hard to miss).
I learned nothing from that imposing statue I did not already know about the life of Lee or the Civil War, but I certainly understood its message and why it was there.
PETER VALIANTE
Grantham