Here are some brief thoughts on recent happenings in Franklin County and the North Quabbin region.
It’s hard to measure peace: there are no scorekeepers, like in sports, and no grades, like in academics. There are no elections, with winners and losers. Rather, the fruits of peace are the absence of conflict, the quelling of tempers and the making of friends. Over the long run, it is the peacemakers who bend the moral arc of the universe toward justice.
That makes the Peacemaker Awards, now celebrating their 20th year, among the most important ways that we recognize our young people. Ever since 1999, when the Rev. Stan Aksamit first proposed to recognize young people for their contributions to well-being, nonviolence and justice, the Interfaith Council of Franklin County and Traprock Center for Peace and Justice have looked beyond academic or athletic prowess for such intangible qualities. This year, their choices are: Acadia “Cady” Black, The Sunrise Movement at The Academy at Charlemont, Skylar Craig, Siobhan Davis, Maya Laur, the group consisting of Ella McDaniel, Reyna Ortis and Gracelyn Tatta at Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church in Turners Falls, and Mason Wicks-Lim.
Given the current turmoil, these young peacemakers have never been more needed, now and in the future.
In the novel “Oliver Twist,” by Charles Dickens, a hungry workhouse child tugged at readers’ heartstrings with the plea, “Please, sir, can I have some more?” In the story, that plea fell on deaf ears. But in Greenfield, a young boy’s question, “Can I take two oranges today so I can have one for the weekend?” reached the big-hearted souls at Hillside Pizza and inspired the creation of “Fruit Fridays.”
Hillside Pizza’s Craig White, who was providing pizzas and fruit three days a week to the Salvation Army, said his heart broke as he realized he didn’t have any oranges that day. Moved by his story, Ann De Roode chipped in an additional donation, with the goal of providing enough fruit for people to bring some home.
As De Roode’s daughter, Amy White, put it, “This one little boy blew our hearts open and changed our vision.”
Part-owners Bob Lindner and his daughter, Kim, created a Hillside Pizza Community Meal Service Fundly account to keep the effort going. Donations can be made at bit.ly/2Uxadad or by calling the Bernardston Hillside Pizza shop at 413-648-0500.
Charles Dickens, who had a notoriously hard childhood himself, would be proud.
At its Annual Town Meeting, mask-wearing Orange residents turned out on Mahar’s football field to support their schools, upping a level-funded schools budget — thereby triggering a Proposition 2½ override ballot set for Aug. 3 — and approving a debt exclusion as part of the plan to build a three-story addition onto Fisher Hill Elementary.
Today, that debt exclusion gets put to another vote — this time, a paper ballot. A vote in favor of a debt exclusion prevents the municipal budget from staying at the higher level once the debt is paid off. This is important because it ensures that Proposition 2½ would kick in at the pre-project level, not at the limited-time higher level.
But back to Monday’s ballot: Orange residents, in the privacy of the voting booth, will affirm or overturn their public vote (300-16) to proceed with the three-story addition onto the Fisher Hill Elementary School. If the debt exclusion vote fails, so does the school project.
And, as most any town official countywide can attest, it happens all the time. “Yes, I support you!” is the hue and cry at Annual Town Meeting and “Not from my pocketbook” is the silent refrain. It’s a defining moment for any town, and the last override in Orange, on July 29, 2019, failed at the ballot box.
This is where the rubber meets the road, today, from noon to 7 p.m., at Mahar Regional School.