Here are some brief thoughts on some of the events making news from around the North Quabbin area:
Mushroom foraging, acupuncture, essential oils? These are among the topics involving holistic wellness that will be covered at the first North Quabbin Health and Wellness Fair later this week.
Organized by Tracey Alden of Warwick and Elisha Poulin of Wendell, the fair will take place Saturday at the Metcalf Chapel in their town.
The event is to bring more awareness to the community about the different holistic therapies and opportunities that the North Quabbin has to offer. No need to travel to larger cities in the region to find this alternative to traditional medical care. As usual, the North Quabbin has it all. You just have to look a little harder, maybe.
Even though the community may be small, Alden said there are many gifted herbalists, artists, musicians and therapists right in our backyard. Many of them will be sharing their services at the fair.
More the more traditional front, Heywood Hospital, a sister facility of Athol Hospital, has been named as one of 750 hospitals to receive an “A,” ranking as among the safest hospitals in the United States by The Leapfrog Group, a Washington D.C.-based organization aiming to improve health care quality and safety for consumers and purchasers.
Heywood’s leaders naturally were thrilled by the ranking, and we find it reassuring that Athol Hospital’s parent organization oversees health care facilities of such quality.
North Quabbin Veterans Outreach is going to host a “We Remember …” display designed by Bonnie Benjamin and Emily Boughton to honor veterans. The Athol bandstand will be decorated with hundreds of rippling ribbons Benjamin said signify how remembering the sacrifice of American veterans is “a moving thing. Just as the lives of those who have passed live in our hearts, so the red ribbons of service and sacrifice move endlessly in the wind.”
That’s a touching sentiment and an interesting and visual way to express it.
The display will honor those service members who have died. Individuals and organizations can make a donation to remember and honor those who have served.
On Sunday, May 27, there will be a special honor guard and ecumenical service of remembrance at 11:15 a.m.
Drop by and honor our departed service men and women.
It’s been a quarter century that “Checkpoint Charlie” Scribner has been involved with Royalston’s annual townwide roadside litter cleanup. And we’re not sure he’s been thanked often enough.
Skies cleared and the sun came out just in time for the three-hour event on the last Saturday of April.
And the effort has sprawled beyond the single day of work. With more than 70 miles of roadside to cover, many residents cleaned litter ahead of time and left bags of trash and piles of recyclables by the side of the road for crews to pick up on the actual cleanup day.
After three hours of cleaning, teams converged on Bullock Park, where Scribner had a cooker of his mother’s homemade chili recipe simmering at the pavilion.
It’s volunteers like Scribner and his crew that make the difference in our small towns like Royalston, and make them what they are.