Food and Classical Guitar

HAM AND BEAN SUPPER and
CLASSICAL GUITAR

SUPPER 5:00 PM
GUITAR SOLOIST 7:30 pm

Ham and Bean Supper $11 or $10 with a can good donated. You won't beat Mary's famous recipe.

Michael Sheridan plays solo guitar --‐ Classical, Bossa, Tango, Gypsy Jazz. He resides in Brooklyn, NY, and his wife’s family lives on Willow Street here in Mystic. There will be a freewill offering accepted with the suggested amount of $5. Bring your friends for an evening of great food and music.

 



Creativity and Aging

We need an effort like EngAGE in the Mystic area.  See this excellent article on a creative approach for building a better life among the 55+ group.  You know this demographic is growing in Mystic.  Are you interested in bringing this type of innovative approach to our citizens?  Let's get started with a conversation.

Live Music at Mystic Art Festival

First United Methodist Church
23 Willow Street
Mystic, CT

August 11  2:30-5:00

"Summer Classics" - by Pianist Dayne Rugh
An Afternoon of classic piano music, vintage and contemporary for our friends and neighbors in Mystic for their listening pleasure while enjoying the sites of the annual Mystic Art Festival.  Freewill offerings accepted.

---

August 12 10:30-3:00

"When the Saints Go Marching In" and all your favorite Dixieland songs.
Members of the band are also private music teachers, who wish to pass on their musical knowledge and experiences to the next generation, and entrepreneurs seeking new ways to preserve and perpetuate this uniquely American art form.
Children of all ages are welcome.  Freewill offerings accepted.

Encountering Survivors Exhibit

August 11 and 12
First United Methodist Church
23 Willow Street
Mystic, CT

Encountering Survivors Exhibit

This exhibit located in the community room at the First United Methodist Church will be on display. It is timely and can illuminate the contemporary focus on survivors of tragedies in our daily news. Encountering Survivors focuses on the understandings of each holocaust survivor, and how he or she learned to take their experience and live a vibrant and productive life. Students from 7 area schools interviewed survivors. Seeing and hearing eyewitnesses made history come alive. Come see their work and reflect on their understandings.

Encountering Survivors program 2011-12 sponsored by the Rose and Sigmund Strochlitz Holocaust Resource Center of the Jewish Federation of Eastern CT

In order to draw lessons from the unique horror of the Nazi genocide, the Holocaust Resource Center used a grant from the Bodenwein Foundation for a program entitled “Encountering Survivors.”  This is our fourth year working with local high schools and this year, a middle school.  This year’s Encountering Survivor program includes seven schools that are represented by the following teachers and their students:   David Williams (Bacon Academy); Pam Neidig (Fitch Senior High School); Marceline Macrino (Ledyard High School); Joel Farrior (Leonard J. Tyl Middle School, Montville); Chris Marot and Bridget Joyce (New London High School); Henry Laudone (Norwich Free Academy); and Lynn Frazier (Windham High School).  Through the “Encountering Survivor” program, students interact with survivors/children of survivors individually through a socialization and interview process in the interviewee’s home.  This year’s participants included Henny Simon, Rae Gawendo, Lola Fox, Oleg Elperin, Edie Kil-Freeman, Dr. Stephen Powell, and Romana Strochlitz Primus.   During these intimate meetings, the students learned of the survivor’s childhood, war time experiences, and liberation.  The students also begin to comprehend the survivors’ attitudes and feelings toward these events, and ultimately gain an understanding of precisely what the survivor experienced.  Seeing and hearing an eyewitness to the Shoah makes the history come alive.  These students are now able to represent the survivors and tell their stories with accuracy and feeling to any audience for at least another 50 years.  In a way, the lives of the survivors have become immortalized. 

Students also attended a talk given by Mr. Ben Cooper, a WWII veteran and liberator of Dachau.   For a concluding project, students wrote articles documenting the life of each survivor and these articles were presented in newspaper format at our final meeting held at Ledyard High School.     These posters represent their hard work.

Resources for 55+ Citizens in Mystic

Seeing a couple of Letters to The Day recently has reminded me that the demographics of Mystic show that we need to take more care that the 55+ group of citizens will require new and creative thinking and action.  Many of these people have contributed to our community for a lifetime.  We owe them special care.

The First United Methodist Church Mystic would like to identify the greatest concerns among the 55+ community.  Please go to this page on the church's website to contact us with your feedback.  You will see that you can call or email http://firstumcmystic.org/contact-us.html  Pass this on to a friend.

Let's create some effective, creative programs to use one of our most important resources.

Helping Veterans - Soul Repair Center

Brite Divinity School, Ft. Worth, TX is opening a new center to provide public education and research to better understand moral injury, expecially as it relates to veterans.  A book, Soul Repair, is forthcoming.

Read more and get in touch with the Center.

http://www.brite.edu/programs.asp?BriteProgram=soulrepair

Kitchen Serving Needy

This letter to the editor of The Day, New London, CT, appeared in the Tuesday 31 July. edition  Can we gather the information and see if we can help??

Kitchen serving needy is forced to close
Mary Howland Former director FAMILY Kitchen Mystic

It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell your readers that F.A.M.I.L.Y. Kitchen housed at Faith Lutheran Church, has closed. We served a free meal to anyone who came, every Monday night for nearly three years. We served over 6,000 meals, and handed out dog and cat food, as well as kitty litter. Regretfully, I have become ill and can no longer work the hours it took, nor do the physical labor that was involved.

I want to tell everyone that we had the finest staff of volunteers I have ever worked with in my 30-plus years of volunteering.

I also would like to note my appreciation for the Faith Lutheran Church, Stop & Shop of Groton, and all those who donated. Left over money and food stuffs will go to other organizations serving the needy.

I will miss our patrons terribly and wish them the best. If there is a church out there who wishes to take up this effort, please feel free to contact me, and I will advise on the start up. I can offer advice only at this point, but the need is very real in our town, and I pray someone will step up.