Community generosity
During the past three weeks, I have had the privilege to see how well the midcoast community can work together to maximize individual good deeds. A group of volunteers that supports Partners in Health put on a tag sale at the congregational church and a “ noteworthy card sale” downtown. Together they raised over $7,000 to support the salary of one nurse midwife at the new teaching hospital in Haiti, a country still recovering from the earthquake and decades of poverty and disease.
What made it possible was generosity. I want to thank all those who donated to the tag sale and those who promoted it, set it up, shopped and helped clean up. We thank our anonymous donor, who matches our first $1,000 in sales, as well as donates items. Additional good news is that after the sale, nearly all of the items got passed on to local agencies and stores.
The card sale was made possible by the generosity of the people of P.G. Willey, who loaned us the empty store space on Bay View Street. Tim Seymour donated his graphic design for our poster, and, of course, the volunteers made the cards, set up, cleaned up and greeted the customers.
We thank our loyal customers, many of whom have come to love us year round thanks to generosity of Sondra Hamilton, who sells our cards at Zoot Coffee.
What a wonderful community this is.
Mary Amory
Camden
Christ-mas
In response to Becky Wiers’ Dec. 12 BDN letter to the editor and others who agree with her position: The use of “X-mas” abbreviation for Christmas is not someone trying to take the Christ out of Christmas.
The use of X-mas dates back to early Christian use where the X in the Greek alphabet was the first letter used to spell Christ. For a complete definition, look it up. (Google it.) It had to do with limited writing space/ink, etc. And the use has been approved by Christians for Christians for a long, long time. Most of the first Bibles were written in Greek, as it was the most common written language at the time.
Larry Ferrell
Newport
Wake-up call
Why is the state paying $925,000 to study the state’s welfare system? The people of Maine already know it is flawed and broke. Add that to the fact that the Legislature is trying to close a huge hole in the budget. What is wrong with these people? If they can’t balance the budget, they shouldn’t spend money that they don’t have on a study that is totally unnecessary.
These people in Augusta need a wake-up call.
John L. Clark
Bangor