Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in the Spectrum Generations annual Volunteer Appreciate event, March for Meals, an event that shows participants what Spectrum Generations volunteers do throughout the year by shadowing them as they carry out their duties.

Alna has been through a rough couple of months, with folks sharply divided on the issue of private school choice. But votes are good, because they settle things. One side prevails and one does not; and then we move on.

Over the past year, I was a member of the Bristol dam committee. However, this letter reflects my own views and not the opinions of all members of the committee.

On behalf of the trustees, administration, and staff of LincolnHealth, I’m writing today to express our full and enthusiastic support for the No More Delays campaign in Damariscotta. This citizen-initiated effort was created to strongly encourage state leaders to make the completion of the Bristol Road sidewalk project (between downtown Damariscotta and the LincolnHealth Miles Campus) a priority.

My husband and I live in way upstate New York near the Adirondack Mountains, but we have been traveling to the Pemaquid Peninsula since our honeymoon 50 years ago. We get up your way often every year, sometimes with our family, sometimes by ourselves. We love the peninsula so much.

I want to thank Linda Shaffer for her recent “Talkin’ Trash” column in The Lincoln County News, “Avoiding household battery fires.” I admit that I was unaware of this fire danger.

I would like to thank the young man that stood by me waiting for the police and wrecker to arrive the morning of Friday, Feb. 9 at 9 a.m. on the Pond Road, Newcastle (Eagle’s Nest). I failed to get his name, but he stopped and checked to make sure I was OK and then asked if I wanted him to stay until the sheriff arrived. Shaken up a bit from my ordeal, it was good to have someone there to talk with.

During the recent snow/ice storms, when all else failed, Waldoboro’s highway department came to the rescue. John Daigle was called for help clearing dangerous ice from Friendship Street and within 10 minutes, Mark Gifford and his big sand truck made four sweeps over that part of the road.

I remember taking valentine cards every year to all my grammar school classmates. And every year now I give a lovely card to my wife asking her to be my valentine, often accompanied by a gift of some sort. But this year I’m working on a radical idea. What if, instead of asking someone or ones to be my valentine, I concentrated on being a valentine for another person? And, rather than my wife or my adult children, what if I tried to be an anonymous valentine for an unknown neighbor who really needs a valentine to help them in a really difficult circumstance?

It started with a bold vision. In 2004, Karen Kleinkopf, a mom and first-grade teacher, became motivated to create a change in the community. She saw a need for children in our schools to start eating more nutritionally dense foods and stop eating the foods that were making the community and the world obese. With help from Amy Winston, the Lincoln County Economic Development Office director, they worked together to create a nonprofit organization that would reach as many members of the community as possible and educate them about healthy eating. FARMS was born.

Growing up in Whitefield, I was incredibly lucky to experience a school environment that, even as children, we knew was special. Our little elementary school was the envy of nearby towns, and I am eternally grateful to all the good people involved, who gave me and so many others this exceptional experience.

To accompany our many snow flurries this year, Alna has also seen a flurry of recent controversy over K-8 school choice. In my view, much of it has been fueled by incomplete information. Alna’s student numbers have certainly risen in recent years, but this rise has been driven almost entirely by a natural phenomenon: our town’s birth rate. Restricting K-8 school choice will have little impact on our education costs. Restricting our residents from having babies? Now there’s an idea that could make a difference!

There’s no doubt that the New England Patriots’ 10th Super Bowl game on Sunday will be one for the books. Each championship game they’ve played in the last 17 years has come down to a nail-biting margin of six points or less.

The Medomak Valley Community Foundation (of which we are both honored to be board members) received a cruel and unanticipated blow from the Waldoboro Board of Selectmen at its meeting last Tuesday evening.