This week's letters
Preserve Benjamin Farm
Editor:
Residents of the Pleasant Hill and Higgins Beach neighborhoods were the first to see the writing on the farmhouse wall: the Benjamin Farm and its 128 acres of fields and forests are up for sale.
While it’s easy to make an emotional plea to have this historic and beautiful part of the town’s landscape preserved as farmland, I’d like to make the case in a more rational way.
Last year, I was appointed to serve on a Task Force charged by the Maine Legislature to develop recommendations for a new state food policy. We came up with many of them, but there was a central theme running through them all: we’re facing unprecedented threats – diminishing oil supplies, food safety scares, global climate change, terrorism, etc. – and Maine needs to become more self-reliant in terms of its food production. Task Force members recommended that Maine be able to meet 80% of its caloric needs through its farms and fisheries by the year 2020, roughly doubling our current production capacity.
Many things will need to happen for us to reach this goal, but none is more important than the protection of our food-producing resource base. For Scarborough, this will mean protecting farmland like the Benjamin property from residential development and turning it back into a working agricultural landscape offering healthy food, beauty, and recreational opportunities for area residents. This will take some work, but the town has done it before with the former Meserve property now known as Broadturn Farm.
We can do it again and must, for ourselves and for posterity.
Roger Doiron
Scarborough
Thanks to Fresh Air volunteers
Editor:
As National Volunteer Week approaches, I would like to give my deepest thanks to our dedicated Fresh Air hosts, volunteers, and supporters in Scarborough.
They truly embody the meaning of the 2007 National Volunteer week theme, “inspire by example.” Year after year, our volunteers demonstrate their commitment to New York City children by continuing the Fresh Air tradition in the community.
Our caring Fresh Air host families open their homes and share the everyday joys of summertime with their Fresh Air guests. Our local volunteer leaders – many of whom are also hosts – give by serving on our local Friendly Town Committee, planning summer activities, raising funds for special events, publicizing the program and interviewing prospective host families. I would also like to thank all individuals and businesses which have generously given their time and resources to make the Friendly Town program throughout this area a success each summer.
The Fresh Air Fund, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children since 1877. For more information on how you can help to continue this wonderful tradition of volunteering, please call Suzanne Barr at 885-9840 or The Fresh Air Fund at 800-367-0003.
Amanda Cortese,
Director of Public Relations
Editor:
Residents of the Pleasant Hill and Higgins Beach neighborhoods were the first to see the writing on the farmhouse wall: the Benjamin Farm and its 128 acres of fields and forests are up for sale.
While it’s easy to make an emotional plea to have this historic and beautiful part of the town’s landscape preserved as farmland, I’d like to make the case in a more rational way.
Last year, I was appointed to serve on a Task Force charged by the Maine Legislature to develop recommendations for a new state food policy. We came up with many of them, but there was a central theme running through them all: we’re facing unprecedented threats – diminishing oil supplies, food safety scares, global climate change, terrorism, etc. – and Maine needs to become more self-reliant in terms of its food production. Task Force members recommended that Maine be able to meet 80% of its caloric needs through its farms and fisheries by the year 2020, roughly doubling our current production capacity.
Many things will need to happen for us to reach this goal, but none is more important than the protection of our food-producing resource base. For Scarborough, this will mean protecting farmland like the Benjamin property from residential development and turning it back into a working agricultural landscape offering healthy food, beauty, and recreational opportunities for area residents. This will take some work, but the town has done it before with the former Meserve property now known as Broadturn Farm.
We can do it again and must, for ourselves and for posterity.
Roger Doiron
Scarborough
Thanks to Fresh Air volunteers
Editor:
As National Volunteer Week approaches, I would like to give my deepest thanks to our dedicated Fresh Air hosts, volunteers, and supporters in Scarborough.
They truly embody the meaning of the 2007 National Volunteer week theme, “inspire by example.” Year after year, our volunteers demonstrate their commitment to New York City children by continuing the Fresh Air tradition in the community.
Our caring Fresh Air host families open their homes and share the everyday joys of summertime with their Fresh Air guests. Our local volunteer leaders – many of whom are also hosts – give by serving on our local Friendly Town Committee, planning summer activities, raising funds for special events, publicizing the program and interviewing prospective host families. I would also like to thank all individuals and businesses which have generously given their time and resources to make the Friendly Town program throughout this area a success each summer.
The Fresh Air Fund, an independent, not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.7 million New York City children since 1877. For more information on how you can help to continue this wonderful tradition of volunteering, please call Suzanne Barr at 885-9840 or The Fresh Air Fund at 800-367-0003.
Amanda Cortese,
Director of Public Relations
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