Around Town – March 5, 2020

Congratulations to Ava Rohrbaugh and Annika Gruber whose poems appeared in the Burlington Free Press “Young Writers Project” of February 21. Ava responded to the challenge to write about “gratitude.” She said she was grateful “for the little light inside of us sprinkled with emotion and humanity.”

Annika’s poem titled “The Marginalized” talks about what it is like not to fit in. “Circles can be closed off to you and name cards switched.” If you are the one left out or picked on for too long, you “start believing that you deserve it—but you’re wrong.”

Ava was also published in the February 28 issue under the topic of “reach.” Titled “If Only,” she says she knows that after night, the sun will swipe its strokes of blue over her little diamonds. She wishes she “could touch them, feel their warmth sitting in my hands or burning holes in my pockets.”

Sympathy is extended to family and friends of Marie Hadwen of Fort Myers, FL who passed away February 5 at the age of 89. She spent many summers at a camp on Cedar Beach, Charlotte, and her surviving family includes her daughter Wendy Hadwen Schroeder. There will be a memorial service held this coming summer in Vermont.

Sympathy is extended to family and friends of Ann Bielawski who passed away at Vermont Respite House recently. She was an active member of the Charlotte Congregational Church. She was married to Joseph Bielawski, who predeceased her on August 9, 1981. A special thanks to her friends, neighbors and members of the Charlotte Congregational Church for their love and support.Honoring Ann’s wishes and last request, there will be no visiting hours, funeral or memorial service. Following cremation, her ashes will be interred at the convenience of her family at Grand View Cemetery in Charlotte, Vermont. In lieu of flowers, if anyone wishes to make a donation in her memory, it may be made to the Charlotte Congregational Church, P.O. Box 12, Charlotte, VT 05445 or sent to the Shriners Hospitals for Children, Office of Development, 2900 Rocky Point Drive, Tampa, Fl 33607.