Thank you!
Your support is sustaining the future of local news in our communities.

Letters to the Editor - The Millerton News - 4-16-20

Roe Jan Library continues to support its patrons, despite pandemic

 

We were very excited. The annual Party in the Park fundraiser we had planned was going to be something new and different. We were ready to celebrate the 10th birthday of the building that houses this little library, which has become such a huge force in the Roe Jan community.

And then, life changed.  

And so, of course, we have canceled the party — put away our plans until, we hope, next year, when we are again able to be together — to celebrate, to laugh and to at last stand shoulder to shoulder to enjoy each other’s company.

In these days, our community is challenged. And deprived of daily contact with friends and family, we have gained a deeper understanding of our need for community. And in that spirit, I want to tell you how proud I am of what Library Director Tammy Gaskell and her staff have achieved in keeping us all connected.

During these hard times while our beautiful building has been closed, www.RoeJanLibrary.org has been open. We have offered e-books, audiobooks, movies and online courses, as we always do, and added a few more digital resources, and we have conducted virtual programs — from strength and balance exercise classes to technology assistance to a community art project. We’ve read stories to toddlers and shared poetry among adults. And we have reached out to many of our most vulnerable patrons, to check in with them and to let them know that we are here to help. Our presence has comforted, consoled, and, yes, entertained our community. 

I know that many of us have suffered during this time. It is our goal and it is our obligation to continue to bind this community together as we recover from these times.

My very best wishes to you and your family. Next year we will celebrate together.

 

Patricia A. Placona

President, Roeliff
Jansen Community
Library Board of Trustees

Copake

 

Pine Plains Free Library stays in touch, virtually

Hello from the Pine Plains Free Library! We hope you have been doing well. We are still closed for the time being, and are unsure as to when we will be able to reopen, but we will let you know when we know. Please check our website, www.pineplainslibrary.org, and/or Facebook for updates.

 We are continuing to maintain and, when possible, increase access to online resources, and are here to help with any questions or concerns regarding your library card and online library resources. Just e-mail me at director@pineplainslibrary.org. 

Thanks for your patience and understanding, and stay safe and healthy! Visit our website to see some of our favorite online resources available to you for free with your library card, and for more information about remote resources and services we offer!

 

Veronica Stork
Director, Pine
Plains Free Library

Tivoli

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Millerton News and The News does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

Millerton wine shop owner organizes charity wine tasting for local child

Millerton Wine & Spirits owner Chris Jeans has organized a charity wine tasting to benefit the family of Crew Slater, a Millerton native with congenital kidney disease. The wine tasting is set for Thursday, Oct. 29, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Pasture Kitchen on Route 44 just east of the Village of Millerton.

Illustration provided

MILLERTON — Two local business owners have joined forces to put on a charity wine tasting benefitting Millerton's Slater family.

Crew Slater, a 5-year-old Millerton native, needs a kidney transplant to survive congenital kidney disease. Millerton Wine & Spirits owner Chris Jeans and Pasture Kitchen founder Austin Cornell have organized a charity wine tasting at Pasture Kitchen on Route 44 next Thursday, Oct. 29, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Keep ReadingShow less
Cornwall Historical Society celebrates Connecticut’s Black patriots

On Saturday, Oct. 24, at the Cornwall Historical Society, author and genealogist John Mills will breathe new life into the stories of some of Connecticut’s more underappreciated patriots. The reason these heroes were forgotten? They were Black.

At a time when white colonists were fighting for their own liberty and political independence, many Black men who fought alongside them remained enslaved. Some risked their lives only to return to bondage. Though enslaved people were promised freedom from both sides of the Revolutionary War in exchange for their service, Great Britain, too, was still deeply dependent on slavery. For Black people in America, the war presented both extraordinary risks and uncertain paths to the freedom that white colonists were demanding for themselves.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

A sanctuary for second chances

A sanctuary for second chances

Stephanie Saetta runs Charlie Chicken Bones, a sanctuary in Salisbury.

Madi Long
You only get one or two of these soul connection dogs, so I do this in his honor.
— Stephanie Saetta

Stephanie Saetta has spent much of her life caring for others. A physician at White Plains Hospital, she has another calling at home in Salisbury — one that has four legs and a wagging tail. She runs Charlie Chicken Bone Sanctuary, a nonprofit dog rescue that brings dogs from overcrowded pounds and the streets of Texas to foster homes in northwestern Connecticut, where they can begin again.

The sanctuary is named for Charlie, the dog who taught her how special a bond between a person and rescue animal can be.

Keep ReadingShow less
Big ideas come to Lenox for inaugural field festival

Hunter Runnette, founder and board chair of field, has spent years fostering arts and cultural programming in the Berkshires.

Provided

What do joy, gardening, artificial intelligence, the American experiment and the creative process have in common? Quite a lot, as it turns out, at least when some of the world’s most compelling thinkers get together to talk about them.

From Friday, Oct. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 25, Lenox, Massachusetts, will host the inaugural field festival, a three-day gathering of writers, artists, scholars and cultural figures at Shakespeare & Company. Billed as a festival of ideas, entertainment, learning and discovery, field brings together an impressive roster of voices to explore everything from the deeply personal to the profoundly political.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Pink House AM is serving up community

Mare Rubin and Maggie Levine of the Pink House AM.

Madi Long

It all started with a yoga class. Mare Rubin was working on her second act after leaving the Upper West Side, where she’d raised a family and worked in corporate marketing. Newly empty nesters, she and her husband decided to move to the wilds of northwestern Connecticut, where they had spent 15 years as weekenders, to see what life in the woods had in store for them.

Rubin started teaching yoga classes at the Union in West Cornwall, a space designated by the town of Cornwall as a community hub with couches, Wi-Fi, occasional events and a growing yoga class schedule. She was adjusting well but missed one important thing about city life: a casual coffee shop.

Keep ReadingShow less
google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.

google preferred source

Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.