Inside A4 Powhatan’s music education program receives national recognition
Powhatan, Virginia B1 Amid downpours, Indians battle to tie
Vol. XXX No. 19
May 10, 2017
Pared down school websites re-launched By Laura McFarland News Editor
P PHOTOS BY LAURA MCFARLAND
Sen. Glen Sturtevant Jr. cuts the ribbon on the opening of the 2017 Powhatan Farmers Market on May 4. Below, Brenda Powers with Sunny Side Farm sells produce to a market customer.
Farmers market opens for season By Laura McFarland
The farmers market held a ribbon cutting at the start of its first event of the 2017 season, which took place on Thursday, May 4 at the Westchester Commons shopping center. It will be operated at its new location from 4 to 7 p.m. every Thursday through Oct. 26. The farmers market switched locations after its old one, Flat Rock
News Editor
M
IDLOTHIAN – The Powhatan Farmers Market kicked off its seventh season with a new out-of-county location but a continued dedication to providing a producer-only local shopping venue for Powhatan residents.
see FARMERS, pg. 5
OWHATAN – The various websites run by Powhatan County Public Schools have been successfully re-launched following an investigation by the Office for Civil Rights, but what is left is far less than what school staff wanted. It took several months to finish the investigation with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which was the result of an out-of-state complaint in late 2016 that the websites were not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), said Dr. Eric Jones, superintendent. Jones said he received a letter from the OCR at the end of March saying the school district’s websites were now in compliance and that the investigation was closed. While he is pleased the investigation is over, Jones said he is far from pleased with the “skeleton website” that was left in its wake. “It is one where a lot of information has been taken down. We don’t feel good about it and we are looking at ways where we can repopulate it in a way where items are still accessible,” Jones see WEBSITE, pg. 9
Habitat helps family into home By Laura McFarland News Editor
Prsrt. Standard U.S. POSTAGE PAID Powhatan, VA Permit No.19
POWHATAN – When Sharon Blisick talks about the new house her family lives in thanks to the help of Habitat for Humanity-Powhatan, it’s not features like a nice front porch or her three sons having their own room that draw her biggest praise. It’s the simple fact that they now have a home of their own again. This spring, Blisick and her three sons, Hayden, 12, Garret, 9, and Nolan, 7, got a fresh start when they moved into a resold Habitat house. The four-bedroom house built in 2012 belonged to a previous Habitat recipient
who remarried and sold it back to Habitat, and now it is giving the Blisicks their shot at making a new life for themselves. “Habitat came in and laid all laminate flooring because two of my kids have allergies. They really went above and beyond to make this home mine. It wasn’t ‘Let’s just sell her this home.’ They wanted to make it feel like my home,” she said. Blisick isn’t taking this feeling for granted because she knows how quickly it can disappear. Several years ago, Blisick was living the American dream. She was a stay-at-home mom living with her husband and three children in a nice see HOME, pg. 10
PHOTO BY LAURA MCFARLAND
The Blisick family stands in front of their new Habitat house.
S I S T E R S J O I N M A RC H I N N AT I O N ’ S C A P I TA L By Laura McFarland
DELIVER TO: Postal Patron Powhatan, VA 23139
News Editor
POWHATAN – Three Powhatan County nuns recently joined thousands of people from across the nation to march the streets of Washington, D.C. demanding action on climate change, an issue they already have been championing on a local level. Sisters Maureen Carroll, Beulah Martin, and Elena Henderson, who are all three part of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, participated in the Peoples Climate March on Saturday, April 29, which was also President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office. The Washington March was one of 370 related marches that reportedly took place across the country on
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Sisters Beulah Martin, left, Maureen Carroll, and Elena Henderson of Powhatan participated in the Peoples Climate march on April 29.
the same day, largely driven by what many see as a dangerous attitude toward the environment on Trump’s part. Organizers reported that more than 200,000 people participated in that event
alone, according to its website, PeoplesClimate.org. The three Powhatan women traveled to Washington, D.C. with 33 other members of St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Richmond, which
is their parish church, Carroll said. They, along with tens of thousands of others, braved temperatures in the 90s to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with the goal of circling the White House in peaceful protest. Carroll said their group was driven to carry out Pope Francis’ call in his 2015 encyclical to live responsibly with the planet, remember the needs of others around the world and to reduce consumption and energy usage for the sake of God’s creation. Pope Francis called the Church and the world to acknowledge the urgency of the planet’s environmental challenges and to join him in embarking on a new path. “As the pope says, the earth is our common home, no matter our religion, race, see WALK pg. 6
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