Are you short on food this week? This month? Longer than that? The Hanover Food Pantry was started last November by a small group of community members who were aware of how easy it is in these pandemic times to find yourself suddenly short on money to buy food, keep up the car payment and pay the rent or mortgage.
The Hanover Food Bank is held outdoors, in good weather or bad, behind the United Church of Christ on the Dartmouth College campus, just beyond the library. You don’t need to provide any personal information to pick up food, nor do you need to be a Hanover resident.
All items at the pantry are free, and shoppers include senior citizens, graduate students, people from surrounding communities, people with young children, couples and people who live alone. The offerings are comprehensive: a wide range of groceries, from meat and fresh produce, coffee and juice, milk and eggs, cereal and breads, flour and baking items, and snacks for children’s lunches to household and personal care items. Visitors often request items (gluten-free, low-sodium), and we do our best to stock them.
The pantry is a collaboration with the Upper Valley Haven in White River Junction. Donations from local food producers such as King Arthur Baking Co., Cabot Creamery, Blake Hill Preserves and local farmers have been generous.
These are difficult, challenging times. If you’re in need of food, stop in on Saturdays between 10:30 and 12:30, bring home food for the week, and check one worry off your list.
NANCY SERRELL
Hanover
The writer is a Hanover Food Pantry volunteer.
I was pleased to see Valley News business writer John Lippman’s piece on Woodstock’s new Smilin Steve’s Ottauquechee Pharmacy (“Town gets new pharmacy: Family-owned store closes 12-month gap in service,” Sept. 24).
I’d like to offer a friendly observation, though.
Lippman wrote that the former Woodstock Pharmacy sold its customer records to CVS in West Lebanon (which is true) “so the new pharmacy is building a customer base from scratch.” The implication is that Woodstock Pharmacy customers are now all happily being served by CVS.
However, I know I’m not the only Woodstock resident who experienced problems with CVS, and who switched to Smilin’ Steve as soon as his new pharmacy opened here. It didn’t hurt that a friend of mine in Rutland praised his excellent pharmacy and personal service there.
Now, from my own experience, I can highly recommend our new Ottauquechee Pharmacy. I trust the Hochbergs won’t have to “scratch” long for customers.
JANICE PRINDLE
South Woodstock
Within my mother’s lifetime, women started giving birth four years later, on average. If the trend continues, the average woman in 2080 should be having her first child around 40 — an age at which 15-30% of women may already be infertile (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Something will have to change.
Meanwhile, as aspiring young women ration their days, America’s aging population is looking to fill the extra years modern medicine has afforded by volunteering and going back to school in record numbers. Even so, the CDC finds nearly a quarter of those 65 and up are socially isolated.
Why should young women feel strapped for time while their older counterparts have time and energy to spare? Why should women be “buying time” to delay motherhood (freezing eggs, in vitro fertilization) while also paying to “spend” the time of older family members (senior classes, companion care)?
What if, instead, young people paused their professional timelines to have children, then let older family or community members co-star as caregivers while they finished school, pursued apprenticeships, started businesses and established themselves?
In their report, Hidden in Plain Sight: How Intergenerational Relationships Can Transform Our Future, researchers at Stanford describe how older people gain a renewed sense of purpose relating with children, while children learn social and problem-solving skills from them.
These benefits have been realized in intergenerational care facilities around the world, where elderly residents interact with young children. One was even the subject of an Australian reality show, Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds, which won an international Emmy in 2020.
Having children earlier also offers a promising solution for career-oriented women. When the average binary couple has their first child, the pay gap between them doubles due to a reduction in the woman’s salary. Only two groups of women eventually regain their original relative income levels: women who have kids before 25 and women who have kids after 35. Jobwise, having kids early is just as helpful as having them late.
Maybe it’s time to rewrite the “working mom” script.
KIRSTEN ZIMAN
Lebanon
I love Vermont and our family’s home in Newbury. I believe we should respect these Green Mountains and our environment. I ran for office in 2020, and one of my campaign planks was that carbon taxes, fees and schemes would hurt my neighbors and would cause a further rise in the cost of living here.
The subject here is the Transportation Climate Initiative’s “fuel tax,” which I believe is a cap-and-trade scheme. Those proposing this scheme may laugh and repeat the mantra that this is not a tax. Perhaps it’s not a tax, technically, but it is a fee that would grow to meet the ever-increasing financial goals of the carbon tax lobby in Montpelier, essentially a growing black hole.
With the TCI tax, fuel prices would be intentionally inflated to meet the carbon tax lobby’s goals, the consequence of which would be that the prices of nearly all goods and services in Vermont would rise. TCI would increase the challenges that those of limited means face on a daily basis. Compassion dictates that we share our personal opinions publicly, even though this may be difficult for some.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu called it what it was — a boondoggle — as he flatly turned it down. Consider requesting that Vermont Gov. Philip Scott turn away from the TCI tax, completely and forever, as New Hampshire has done.
The TCI is nothing more than a hurtful tax wrapped in Earth Day paper.
JT DODGE
East Corinth
To review Republican logic, voters should have frothing fealty to a multiply bankrupt, divorced, sued, impeached, likely-to-be charged (?) seditionist whose lexicon rarely reaches beyond Salem (the older one; recycled names are another topic) and whose friends are under investigation, if not incarcerated.
Wait, it gets confusing. They don’t want to examine the insurrection and expect non-conservatives to partake in a process they claim is rigged — while rigging the voting system. The “audits” show Trump lost even more (bigly?).
Republicans have lost ground with independent voters: While Trump beat Clinton by 1% in 2016 with 43% of these voters, according to the Pew Research Center, Biden trumped Trump in 2020 by 9% with a 52% grab (pardon the pun on both sides).
The GOP used to stand for personal responsibility and freedom, smaller government, truth and justice and respect for authority. Welcome to the 2020s. Why study gun violence, police brutality, or COVID-19 rates? In Texas (where else?) they are waging war on women’s health, with the next stop “homosexual behavior.”
The GOP would do well to take Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene off a pedestal and listen to the truths of Sen. Mitt Romney and Rep. Liz Cheney. They could also spend time on terra firma and acknowledge that most voters in the U.S. are liberal and they chose Joe Biden because they prefer his policies over hate speech.
Sure, the loss of 13 soldiers is a tragedy, but the Afghanistan withdrawal was nearly flawless when put into historical context. As French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau put it: “War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.” I suppose the Taliban had leis and flowers from Ivanka Trump’s latest business venture stockpiled for our departure. Donald Trump also wanted out but had no plan besides inviting the Taliban for tea.
The Haitians had no border wall to admire. Trump promised to fix immigration and infrastructure. What is the right’s plan besides “No”?
As children look out the bus window and return to school, we must ask ourselves what kind of world do we wish them to see?
STEPHEN HANDLEY JR.
Grantham