All tagged 2020/11
In light of the pandemic, Swarthmore’s annual Home for the Holidays event has been significantly pared down from what the community has come to expect. In place of the traditional horse-drawn carriage rides, visit from Santa Claus, and dreidel games, there will be a handful of holiday activities that people can do on their own. Since the day of seasonal festivities is usually a big shopping day in the borough, the cancellation is worrisome for some retailers.
Built on a myth about how this country came to be, Thanksgiving might be the best occasion of all to remember the inequities that have shaped the world and our place in it. After giving thanks for what we have, perhaps we can ask ourselves what we might do to reshape it.
Pens and other art supplies, along with notebooks, tote bags, mugs, and enamel pins, are the main merchandise in Caroline Stockman’s new store, Of Aspen, which opened in Swarthmore last month. Stockman is an artist herself, and Of Aspen specializes in products she uses and loves. “Through the years, I’ve found a lot of products that I live by,” she says.
The signs at the borough limits say “Tree City, USA,” but there should really be something there about education as well. Not only are we home to Swarthmore College, but our residents have schooling on their minds. That’s the clear finding of our latest Unscientific Survey, which asked if readers knew what a group of commonly used local initials stood for. The top five most recognizable were all schools or educational bodies.
School buildings will stay open, and winter sports practices will begin on November 30. At a nearly four-hour meeting on Monday night, members of the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District school board voted unanimously to maintain the hybrid model of instruction. Superintendent Lisa Palmer reported that the district has not seen linked transmission of COVID-19 in the schools, that contact tracing continues, and that the district can still adequately staff its buildings.
Eight months, 77 grants, $673,000. That’s how long the COVID-19 Response Fund of the Foundation for Delaware County has been operating, and how much money it has distributed so far.
A strike involving about a third of the Swarthmore College student body began on November 16. The students are protesting what they call the college’s complicity in violence against Black and Indigenous people. The students refuse to attend class, complete assignments, or work at campus jobs until their demands are met.
Two free webinars from Delaware County Master Gardeners offer help using materials you can find in your yard or community to create fresh, natural holiday arrangements.
I am an ancient Swarthmorean. I have lived here, I don’t know, sixty years. I lived on Amherst Avenue for years and years, and then, when my husband died, the children suggested that I look at my current house, right next to theirs. I think they might regret it, but most of the time we get along fine.
COVID-19 has upended strategies teachers rely on to connect with kids and teach their subjects. In the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District, teachers have had to switch gears several times, going all-virtual last spring, then preparing over the summer for in-person school, only to learn that school would stay virtual after all. Then, in October, most teachers went back to school buildings, teaching cohorts of students in a hybrid of in-person and virtual instruction.
As we endure the COVID-19 pandemic and struggle to find the sweet spot between prudent conduct and paranoid germophobia, we can understand the toll that fear of contagion took 91 years ago.
I grew up watching reruns of the original “Star Trek” with my older brothers. Back then, I took refuge from the chaos of childhood in the brightly lit moral universe of the Federation. I started watching “Discovery” last year, after — in what seemed to me a wonderful bit of serendipity — both former Georgia congressional representative Stacey Abrams and my own brother recommended it. I need that brightly lit morality now.
Taxes and the 2021 budget were the centerpiece of Swarthmore Borough Council’s November 9 legislative session, as they had been at the previous week’s work session. Members wrestled with raising taxes to cover community priorities in a year when many residents are economically struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Council must commit to a tax rate at its December 7 meeting.
Even with few students living in the dorms for the next few months, the college grounds will remain closed. In a letter to the Swarthmore College community, President Val Smith explained the decision, citing the current surge in COVID-19 cases across the region as well as projections of even higher positivity rates to come.
Theodore “Dorie” Friend, who served as Swarthmore College’s 11th president from 1973 to 1982, died of cancer at his home in Villanova on November 4. He was 89. An award-winning historian who pursued his scholarly interests with passion and conviction, Friend came to Swarthmore with the goal of rebuilding trust and a sense of community on campus after the challenges of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
A couple weeks ago, several of us toured Little Crum Creek Park. A large portion of the tour focused on invasive plants and how they are impacting the natural areas of the park. As a gardener, I think it is valuable to have a working knowledge of invasive plants. With knowledge, our actions can help remedy their damage; conversely, in ignorance, we can inadvertently contribute to the problem.
These results are as of Friday, November 13 at 2:31 pm with 100% of the precincts reporting. 77% of registered voters across Delaware County participated in the general election. The results are still deemed unofficial at the time of this posting.
I was at the Swarthmore Farmers Market when the news broke that Joe Biden had won the election. People started cheering in the streets. Honking their horns. I saw some people break down in tears. I understood it, but I didn’t feel it.
When I met Joe Biden, I was still struggling, every single moment of every day, with the loss of our son. That morning, it had taken all of my energy just to put on a dress for the event. When Joe Biden poured into that room, calling for me and smiling, I saw resilience. I saw a way to wade through my swamp of intense sadness.
As the sun set on Election Day last Tuesday, November 3, the unusually spectacular orange glow, which seemed more appropriate to Halloween than Election Day, triggered a question in the mind of at least one voter: Was it a metaphor, or an omen?
