Watertown News (https://www.watertownmanews.com/category/more/aroundtown/page/556/)
Throughout the month of February, Watertown Citizens Refugee Support Group will continue its donation program for essential items to be sent to refugees trapped in camps in Syria and surrounding countries. DONATION INFORMATION:
When: Sundays Feb. 10, 14, 21, 28 from 8:30am-10am; Tuesdays Feb. 2, 9, 16 , 23 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.; Thursdays Feb. 4, 11, 18, 25 from 1-5 p.m.
Where: Church of the Good Shepherd, 9 Russell Ave.
The Arsenal Project invites you in for an exciting winter workshop series exploring natural science with Mass Audubon Habitat educators. Fun opportunities to see, touch & learn about birds, animals, bones and more! These interactive family-friendly Saturday workshops from 1-3 p.m. are great for all ages. Schedule & details below:
Jan. 30; Wildlife Tracks and Traces – Many animals are active in winter – but they are rarely seen.
The Casey Outdoor Skating Rink is now open for use by Watertown residents, announced Recreation Director Peter Centola. The facility general schedule is 8 a.m. to 9:45 p.m., unless it is shut down earlier for maintenance, Centola said. The rink is located at 124 Watertown St. on the south side of town. Bring your own skates!
The first project to go through the town’s revamped Pleasant Street zoning, and the review by the town’s design consultant went before the public Thursday night and the reception was very positive – especially compared to past projects on the Westside corridor. The proposed Water Mills at Bridge Point mixed-use project would go at 330-350 Pleasant Street, and replace Casey Dupuis Equipment and Julian Crane properties on the south side of the street, near Rosedale Avenue. The new complex would have 20,000 square feet of retail, including a restaurant overlooking the Charles River, and 99 apartment units, according to Doug Annino, architect from Annino Inc. who is working on the project for developer Mark Coppola. (Click here to see preliminary plans). Along with the restaurant, developers hope to attract a place to get coffee, such as Starbucks, Annino said.
The 16th annual Watertown Unity Breakfast was filled with calls to action, and speeches that made people think about discrimination felt by groups in today’s world – poor minority communities, Muslims and the LGBT community. The keynote speaker, Andrea James, has been working to change the “mass incarcerations” due to the War on Drugs, which she said has unfairly targeted “poor communities of color.” James is the founder and executive director of Families for Justice as Healing, and was an inmate herself at the Danbury Federal Correctional Facility, made famous by the show “Orange is the New Black.” The system is broke, James said. In Massachusetts, for instance 60 percent of inmates come back into the system after being released.
The Garden Club of America (GCA) announced that David P. Barnett, President & CEO of Mount Auburn Cemetery, is the 2016 recipient of its Distinguished Service Medal. Previous recipients of this significant award, which was first given in 1953, include Thalassa Crusso Hencken (1970) of the television series “Making Things Grow,” Dr. J.C. Raulston (1993) director of the NCSU Arboretum, Marco Polo Stufano (1999) director of Wave Hill, and Florence Leanne Reed (2009), founder of Sustainable Harvest. According to the GCA’s official announcement, “Dr. David Barnett is dedicated to ecological, historically sensitive improvements at the 175-acre Mount Auburn Cemetery. During his leadership, Mount Auburn has risen to the highest horticultural standards in its 184-year history.” The GCA further writes that he has “reclaimed early nineteenth-century and late Victorian style rustic landscapes, restored monuments, and expanded the planting diversity.
For years, Catilin Basile has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals, but she found that the best therapy was writing about her experiences. Now she is raising money to get her memoir professionally edited and published. The 30-year-old Watertown resident has spent the last decade in and out of hospital, emergency rooms and therapy. It got so bad that she was told by McLean Hospital that she was not welcome because she was labeled “unable to be treated.” Her journaling, however, has helped her stay out of hospital for the longest spell in years – nine month.
Mount Auburn Hospital’s CareGroup Parmenter Home Care & Hospice, Inc. has been awarded a $50,000 Grief Reach grant from the New York Life Foundation. The grant will help to expand CareGroup Parmenter Home Care & Hospice Inc.’s award-winning free child bereavement program, HEART play to the greater Boston area. The program, now in its 21st year uses creative arts to help children and teens cope with the illness or death of a loved one. “We are grateful to the New York Life Foundation for this grant. This award will enable us to develop community partnerships with agencies in the greater Boston area to serve children and teens affected by the death of a significant person in their lives.