Goodwill Industries of the Berkshires and Southern Vermont will hold a grand opening of its new store and donation center in Brattleboro on Saturday, Dec. 17, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Royal Square Shopping Center, 768 Putney Road (Route 5), next to Staples.
A ribbon-cutting celebration with opening remarks and special guests will be held at 11 a.m. Door prizes will be given out all day.
The 23,000-square-foot store and donation center, located in the space formerly occupied first by JCPenney and later by Peebles, features a 10,000-square-foot sales floor. The back room, where donated merchandise is sorted, processed, and priced, and the dock area comprise the remaining 13,000 square feet at the location.
According to a news release, Goodwill “will offer customers a welcoming, department store type of experience. Shopper-friendly features include four cash registers, six fitting rooms, piped-in music, and easily accessible shopping throughout the sales floor” with store merchandise that has been “specially selected by Goodwill employees through donations of top quality, gently-used and new items, including clothing, housewares, furniture, electrical items, and other unique, one-of-a-kind items.”...
Hooker-Dunham Theater and Gallery's resident acting teacher Jim Maxwell will return to teach a month-long Shakespeare Scene Study class through the month of January. He will be offering a free introductory workshop on Saturday, Dec. 17, from 1 to 3 p.m., in which students will select scenes and learn...
Next Stage Arts Project and Twilight Music present an acoustic music Winter Solstice Mini-Fest featuring multi-instrumentalist Matt Flinner and folk/roots trio Low Lily on Saturday, Dec. 17, at 7:30 p.m. The four award-winning musicians, accompanied by double bassist Steve Roy, celebrate the winter solstice, playing energetic instrumentals and songs...
The high cost of food has become a common topic of conversation across the country over the past year or so. Almost everyone can easily chime in on the topic with lived experience around the rapid increase in the price of household food staples. For individuals, the impact is directly felt. For organizations like Foodworks - an entirely free, local grocery store operated by Groundworks Collaborative - the effect of the inflation of food costs imposes a compounding negative effect.
Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol will be presented live as a 1930s-style radio play to help support the Deerfield Valley Food Pantry on Saturday, Dec. 17, at 2 p.m., at Historic Memorial Hall, 14 West Main Street. The inclement weather date is Sunday, Dec. 18, at 2 p.m. Six actors portray 41 characters, from Ebenezer Scrooge to Tiny Tim. Live sound effects will accompany this staged version. Actors Thom Griffin, Joan Haley, Michael Haley, John Reese, Ann Steinhauser, and Brooke...
The Windham County Humane Society (WCHS) says it is in desperate need of a variety of new dog and cat toys to keep shelter pets' spirits bright as they wait for their new families. For dogs, cats, and other pets, toys are not a luxury, but a necessity. “Toys help fight boredom and provide comfort when animals are feeling nervous,” Keri Roberts, director of operations at WCHS, said in a news release. “Toys can even help prevent animals from developing...
Obituaries • Beverly Amelia (Eckert) Bloom, 101, of Townshend, formerly of Brookline. Died Dec. 1, 2022 at Valley Cares Assisted Living in Townshend. She was born on Sept. 9, 1921, to the late Wilmer and Pearl (Love) Eckert. She was the wife of the late Louis R. Bloom, whom she married on March 24, 1940 in Norwalk, Connecticut. Beverly spent her youth in Connecticut where she attended school in Norwalk. In 1950, she and Louis moved to Brookline, where she...
Public opportunity to learn from community members who are unhoused BRATTLEBORO - The public is invited to attend a community conversation on Windham County homelessness on Wednesday, Dec. 14, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Brooks Memorial Library. One part of the event will involve a life-sized Candyland game, designed by Advocation 4 the Unfortunate (A4U), for the audience to play and engage with, as a visualization of the obstacles they face as individuals without a permanent address and...
The free Charlie Slate Memorial Christmas Breakfast is set to return this Dec. 25 from a two-year pandemic pause and celebrate its 40th anniversary. Slate began the tradition in 1982 upon noticing most restaurants closed for the holiday. This year, volunteers will arrive at Brattleboro's American Legion as early as dawn to serve up food from 8 to 11 a.m. under the leadership of Slate's granddaughter Jadi Flynn and great-granddaughter Megan Walker. Diners and delivery recipients who call in advance...
The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department (Department) fielded a survey recently on Vermonters' attitudes towards trapping. Documents obtained via a public records request show that the Department seemed more interested in advancing a pro-trapping agenda than in genuinely understanding the public's attitudes. Despite this bias, with vaguely worded survey questions, the results still reveal that most Vermonters oppose trapping. The survey didn't clarify what types of trapping the questions were referring to, so respondents answered without knowing whether the survey...
The winter high school sports season is the longest of the three seasons, stretching from early December to early March. It is also the season that has the least time to prepare. Most local student-athletes barely had two weeks to recover from the rigors of the fall soccer, field hockey, football, and cross-country seasons before heading back into the gym to prepare for the winter season of basketball, ice hockey, and Nordic skiing. That was the lament of Brattleboro coach...
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) invites children in grades K–6 to dream up, draw, and submit imaginary creatures for the 2023 edition of “Glasstastic,” a biennial celebration of youthful imagination and creativity. Launched in 2011, “Glasstastic” grew from 250 submissions the first year to more than 1,200 in 2018. Each year, professional glass artists from throughout New England give generously of their time and talent to turn a selection of submitted student art into three-dimensional glass sculptures. The...
After a search that stretched across states and regions, Brattleboro Savings & Loan (BS&L) says it has hired Deborah Stephenson for the position of president and (1)chief operating officer. She will be succeeding current president and COO Dan Yates, who is retiring at the end of this month after 17 years in that post. Stephenson comes to BS&L from Berkshire Bank in Massachusetts, where she served as senior vice president for compliance and was instrumental in growing its assets from...
(1)The annual “Fill the Bus” event, held by Project Feed the Thousands, will take place on Friday, Dec. 16, at Hannaford Supermarket on Putney Road from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. WTSA 96.7 and Rewind 92.7 will both be broadcasting live, and everyone is encouraged to stop by. “We have a long way to go to meet this year's goals and desperately need everyone's help,” Kelli Corbeil, co-chair of the annual campaign, said in a news release. “Project Feed the...
Grace Waryas has been named the 2022-23 Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Good Citizen for Bellows Falls Union High School, where she is a member of the senior class. The DAR Good Citizen Award and Scholarship Contest, created in 1934, is intended to encourage and reward the qualities of good citizenship and evaluates winners based on criteria set forth by the DAR national organization. Qualifications include dependability (including truthfulness, loyalty, and punctuality), service (including cooperation, courtesy, and consideration of...
The Brattleboro Area Jewish Community (BAJC) Shine a Light for Social Justice program returns with a mix of in-person and online events designed to bring light to eight social justice issues. Every night from Dec.18 through 25 the BAJC Zoom room will be open for candle lighting at 5:30 p.m. with Rabbi Amita Jarmon. According to a news release, BAJC will kick off its Chanukah celebrations with an LGBTQ+ Dance Party. “If you feel pride about who you are, if...
The Connecticut River Conservancy (CRC) recently announced that the organization has received funding for the removal of a dam on the Saxtons River. (1)The Conservation Alliance, a national organization that awards grants to projects that protect our nation's most vulnerable species and habitats, determined the CRC's work to remove the old Blake Higgins Dam to be a crucial component of restoring the Connecticut River Watershed. “Many conservancy groups across the U.S. vie for grants such as The Conservation Alliance's, and...
The town's legislative delegation in Montpelier - its three incumbent House members and its two incoming Senators - talked about priorities for the 2023-24 biennium and heard concerns from constituents during an informal meeting on Dec. 10 at Brooks Memorial Library. Democratic State Reps. Mollie Burke, Emilie Kornheiser, and Tristan Toleno are returning to the State House, while Wendy Harrison and Nader Hashim will begin their first terms in the Senate. While the Democrats in the House and Senate have...
Windham County's two largest population centers are poles apart when it comes to their municipal governments' thoughts on how to provide local emergency medical services. Brattleboro has generated months of headlines for its selectboard's decision to drop a nearly 60-year contract with the region's largest and longest-serving EMS provider, Rescue Inc., and hire competitor Golden Cross Ambulance to help with a proposed fire department takeover of coverage. Now Rockingham leaders are considering whether to drop their almost two-decade connection with...
Two churches have joined forces to form Beloved Community, offering combined worship services and spiritual programs as well as working for justice and compassionate service to the broader community. First Baptist Church of Brattleboro (FBC) and First United Methodist Church of Brattleboro (FUMC) share space at 18 Town Crier Drive and are “joining hands to share the love they experience together with others,” say FBC Pastor Suzanne Andrews and FUMC Pastor Ralph Howe. Each congregation has maintained its individual deacons,
In the fall of 2004, my friend Kay's husband, the love of her life, left this world after a long illness. Kay decided to keep their tradition, and so, three months later, without her Richard, she went to the annual extended family Christmas weekend celebration they'd always gone to together. If you're a fellow widow, you will understand how surreal those days were for her, how deeply out of place she felt. How she went through the motions, physically present...
The title poem of Arlene Iris Distler's This Earth, This Body is drawn from “Sisters-A Love Poem,” which appears in the center of this wonderful, beautifully crafted collection by a Brattleboro writer. The poem is one of a series portraying Distler's family (the “family/I was born into, a puzzle from the first/as much as I surely puzzled them”), and it deftly juxtaposes tenderness, grief, and difficult adult relationships. In the opening lines, the poet addresses her younger sister, who professed...