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Postal Customer Local Vol. 5 No. 8
February 1, 2015
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‘Friends’ Bring Residents Together
Norwood Rocks! By Donna Lane Civil unrest. Distrust and disrespect of police. Threats to police. Die-ins in Boston and around the country. In the past few months, people have taken to the streets to voice their protests on the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the death of Eric Garner of New York. That’s some very unpleasant and scary stuff. Do we close our eyes and hope it goes away? That might work for some people, but not Norwood resident Mark Sweeney. Rather than retreat, he took action, organizing a rally in support of our local police and fire organizations. That rally took place the day after Christmas, December 26, 2014. “I wanted to do this because I’ve been upset with the demonstrations in Boston,” Sweeney said. “There’s no way to really verbalize the disrespect people are showing the police for something that happened thousands of miles away.” That sentiment resonated deeply with many Norwood citizens, as over 100 of them (some say as many as 300) gathered on Nahatan Street across from the Police and Fire Department headquarters to show their support of Norwood local services. A large banner was also on hand to reinforce their collaboration
By Renee Plant
Norwood Comes Together
saying “Thank You NPD & NFD,” along with a number of homemade signs with messages, such as “Thank You For Your Bravery” and “Police Lives Matter”. That show of support from the townspeople was well appreciated and recognized. The December 26, 2014 Norwood Police Department Facebook page stated: … “We are humbled and appreciative for the show of support today. … We’ll never forget it.”
Thankful responses were even heard from the top of Norwood’s chains of command. “It’s been discouraging to watch what’s going on and see people questioning the motives of officers trying to do the right thing,” Police Chief Bill Brooks said. “But as discouraging as that
ROCKS
If you think you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, you haven’t heard about the Friends of Norwood Center (FNC). The nonprofit organization, which works to develop, build and strengthen the downtown experience and vitality for the community of Norwood, is currently undergoing a period of rejuvenation in order to better implement its mission statement. “The Friends of Norwood Center have been around for not quite four years,” President John Hall said. “The [current] goals have been the goals of the FNC from its inception, but we have struggled [in the past] with start-up tasks and growing pains to get us up to the scale of operation needed to make a significant contribution to the life of Norwood. We want to understand the needs and wants of merchants and residents of all kinds, and we want them all to see how the Friends of Norwood Center can help them.” Inspiration for the diversification was generated from the town’s most successful Shop Small Saturday to date last year. The event, which falls between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, was created in 2010 by American Express and is meant to be compatible to the two highly popular sales days falling just after Thanksgiving. The
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