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Support at town meetings
Waldo Community Action Partners is asking town voters to support the funding request in their town budgets this year. The program provides critical services to support low-income and vulnerable members of our community, including emergency fuel assistance, home weatherization and repair, transportation, early childhood programs, rent relief and food distribution.
Last year, Waldo Community Action Partners provided $7.8 million in services to residents in every town in Waldo County. Town financial support is critical to help provide services to those with urgent needs. In addition to providing direct client services, municipal funding helps us leverage more money from state and federal sources. Every town or city dollar for transportation services results in three dollars in federal support!
Our transportation program drove county residents 2.3 million miles to medical appointments and other essential services last year. We delivered food during the pandemic and provided early childhood programs remotely. Home repair and fuel assistance keeps Waldo county people warm and safe every day. Waldo Community Action Partners efficiently contributes to a vital safety net for family, friends and neighbors in a time of need. When people attend their town meetings this spring, I ask them to please support our funding request.
Donna M. Kelley
President and CEO
Waldo County Community Action Partners
Belfast
We have a recovery plan without Golden’s help
Watching those Rep. Jared Golden commercials last fall made me feel that he cared about all Mainers, even though I don’t live in his district. Guess I was wrong.
On March 10, Golden joined Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Sen. Mitch McConnell in voting against the American Rescue Plan Act and against the Mainers it will help. No stimulus checks. No restaurant support. No vaccination rollout funding. No school reopening assistance. No to state and local governments that stretched budgets by cutting long-awaited projects. No to improving health insurance subsidies for those who can’t afford their premiums. No to better broadband in rural communities.
Many of the benefits from the act are paid out over months or years. For a Congress that can never pass its annual spending legislation on time one would think getting money lined up before the bills become due would be a good thing. Apparently not for Golden, who sounded like McCarthy and McConnell by saying some of the funding is “wasteful”, despite there being a majority of Americans — Democrats, Republicans and Independents — who welcome the plan.
A year of the pandemic has taught us that COVID-19 costs us more than the price of PPE and vaccines. It has affected all aspects of how we live, learn, work and play. The American recovery needs a plan that is just as broad in addressing these impacts. No thanks to Rep. Jared Golden (or Sen. Susan Collins), we now have one.
Richard Riese
Wiscasset
Maine kids should be back in schools full time
With COVID-19 trending downward in our state and Gov. Janet Mills loosening up restrictions on bars and restaurants, it is time for Mills to loosen social distancing requirements in our Maine schools. Our kids are now the vulnerable population and they need swift action to get them back to school full time.
While our teachers and staff have done an incredible job getting our elementary schools to full time, our high school is still hybrid with our teens home remote learning. With that, we have witnessed a massive slide in our children’s education, growth and development.
President Joe Biden’s swift action to prioritize teacher vaccinations should be commended as well as his mission to make all adults eligible for vaccination by May 1.
With that in mind, it is time for Mills to take action and loosen social distance restrictions on kids in school. Currently, the main barrier for high schools to resume full-time in person is the distancing requirement.
High schools are playing indoor basketball games but our children can’t sit behind a desk and get educated in person? Am I the only one questioning this?
Quite a few states have had schools open full time since the fall with success. It is high time Mills focuses on the next generation and acts now to get our kids back in the classroom full time this spring.
Mills must take action to help the vulnerable population kids have become due to this pandemic, and help give them the successful outcomes and livelihoods they deserve.
Carol Grimm
Freeport