40 Days for Life to host vigil
Forty Days for Life is launching its February campaign with a rally at 7 P M on Monday, February sixteenth at Ste. Marie Parish in Manchester. Forty Days for Life is a peaceful, non-denominational initiative that focuses on 40 days of prayer and fasting, peaceful vigil at abortion facilities and grassroots outreach. Sr. Mary Rose Reddy, a founder of The Daughters of Mary, Mother of Healing Love, will be the featured speaker. Sr. Mary Rose works at the St. Charles School for Children in Rochester. She is also a member of The Running Nuns, who run with their students in full habits. Last year, she joined with six other pro-life activists to challenge New Hampshire’s law creating buffer zones around abortion clinics, correctly claiming it violated the First Amendment.
Sr. Mary Rose Reddy
The campaign features a peaceful forty day prayer vigil in the public right-of-way outside the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic on Pennacook Street in Manchester beginning Wednesday, February eighteenth. All prayer vigil participants are asked to sign a statement of peace, pledging to conduct themselves in a Christ-like manner at all times. More than 650,000 people, representing some 17,000 churches, have committed to pray and fast according to the group, which claims at least 9,699 unborn children have had their lives spared from abortion during their fifteen previous campaigns in five hundred fifty nine communities across the country. For information about the Manchester campaign, visit: 4 0 days for life dot com slash manchester.
In search of mentors
Members of the community who wish to become mentors and offer their work sites as part of an extended learning opportunity for high school students in Manchester can now apply online. We’ve got the link with this newscast at Girard at Large dot com. www.mansd.org/1-000-mentors. The Manchester School District, along with Southern New Hampshire University and the National Center for Competency-Based Learning, launched the 1,000 Mentors program to connect community members, businesses and organizations directly with the schools, expanding the number of ways students can earn academic credit outside of school. The program will emphasize students’ understanding of a subject or skill set. The mentors will be recruited, trained and matched with Manchester students. Expectations for both mentors and students in the program will be explicit and achievement will be clearly defined. Students will earn academic credit by demonstrating mastery of concepts and skills. Anyone in the community, doctors, lawyers, electricians, software developers, news reporters (from them, not us!), painters, musicians, etc…, is welcome to take part in the initiative. The online application is the first step in the process.
News from our own backyard continues after this.
Parent petitions in Deerfield, Northwood would take them out
Voters in Deerfield and Northwood will have the opportunity to weigh in on the Common Core controversy that’s gripped the state as their school deliberative sessions will contain a question bound for the March tenth ballot. Supporters of the question are urging the like minded to attend and protect the questions from hostile forces that may try to attach amendments that would render it useless before it heads to the ballot. The question before residents of both communities is pretty simple. They will be asked to quote “…reject and immediately discontinue participation in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Smarter Balance Assessment, in favor of our own locally developed School District academic standards and assessments, and recommend that the School Board form a committee (consisting of representatives from the school board, school administrators, teachers, and community members) to develop the School District Academic Standards and Assessments.” Northwood’s deliberative session is this Thursday night at seven at the Northwood School. Deerfield’s is Saturday morning at nine in the Town Hall. Those with questions are asked to contact Kevin Verville at either k g verville @ yahoo dot com or 7 3 1 0 6 5 4.
Fed up citizens rising in Sandown, Atkinson?
Townsfolk in Sandown and Atkinson gave the nod to two Citizen’s Petition Warrant Articles relative to forming a committee to conduct a study that would gather the facts and costs and determine what would be involved in separating from the Timberlane Regional School District. Sandown resident Tony Piemonte’s Citizen’s Petition went to the ballot unchallenged by amendments at the town’s annual deliberative session on Saturday. Things were far more interesting in Atkinson, however, though attempts to amend the question at that town’s deliberative session failed, giving voters a clean, clear shot at the question.
The Greens: Predicting big turn out for Timberlane deliberative
Those actions precede what is expected to be a raucous deliberative session for the school district itself. Timberlane School Board Member Donna Green from Sandown is predicting one thousand people will attend the session, which is this Thursday night at seven in the gymnasium of Timberlane Regional High School. She is urging supporters of Budget Committee Member Arthur Green’s Responsible Budget Alternative to get there early to register for the session. Noting that the default budget is actually more than four hundred thousand dollars higher than the proposed budget, the Greens and their supporters are urging folks concerned about run away spending to be there in droves to support the budget proposed by Arthur Green as an alternative to those put forward by the district.
Bernard J. “Bud” Luebkert
Finally this morning, our condolences go out to the family and frineds of Bernard J. Luebkert, who passed on Friday. “Bud,” as he was known to his friends, was politically active in the Queen City for many years. Though unsuccessful in his runs for aldermen in Ward Five, he successfully documented that the actual domicile of then Ward Five Alderman Stephen Dolman was on Hevey Street in Ward Eleven. This led the Board of Registrars to remove Dolman’s name from the voter checklist, which led to his removal from the Board of Aldermen. Luebkert was successful in his bid to become a state representative from Ward Six. He was a scary smart dude, who was kind to all he met and always of good cheer and good will. I always enjoyed his company and was saddened to learn of his passing and his struggles with Alzheimer’s Disease. We’ve linked to his obituary with the details of his life and arrangements. May he rest in peace.
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is next.
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