SPCA grateful
for donations
To the editor:
Thanks to the kindness and generosity of everyone who donated food, supplies and money, DeAnna’s third annual Thanksgiving Animal Drive to benefit the Hunterdon County SPCA was another big success.
On Thanksgiving morning, my staff and I drove our truck filled to capacity up to the shelter in Alexandra Township. We arrived just in time.
The volunteers at the shelter said they had just run out of most cleaning supplies and kitten food, of which, luckily we had both. When we asked if we could help them with the cleaning of the shelter, they told us it was more important if we spent time with the animals, that they would appreciate the attention more than they would our kelp.
We walked dogs, visited with the other animals, including Charlotte the pig and the miniature goats. Before we left, we gave each dog a bone to chew on. It’s amazing how appreciative these dogs are for a kind word and a soft hug. Spending time at the shelter on Thanksgiving morning reminded us what Thanksgiving is all about.
The Hunterdon County SPCA told us that every day, they go through 100 pounds of kitty litter and dog food, 50 pounds of cat food, 18 bales of hay, and the list goes on and on. It is a massive undertaking to take care of these unwanted animals.
Currently in their care, they have 200 kittens and cats, 25 dogs, an emu, two roosters, eight miniature goals and two sheep.
In addition to the supplies, we collected over $2,500 in donations. I greatly appreciate all of you who took the time to contribute to the drive, especially the Unitarian Church at Washington Crossing who, as part of their own Thanksgiving Drive, included the SPCA as well.
As ongoing participation in helping the shelter, DeAnna’s will make regular trips to the shelter. Anyone who would like to drop off supplies or a donation, please feel free to do so at the restaurant at DeAnna’s, South Main and Lilly Streets, Lambertville.
If you’d like more information about the Hunterdon County SPCA, you can call at (908) 996-2525. They have many beautiful and loving animals that need a good and kind home.
The SPCA’s ongoing list of supplies include kitty litter, KMS Kitten Formula for Weaning, dry and wet dog and cat food (kitten and puppy food included, name brands please), bleach and disinfectants such as Lysol Lemon Cleaner, automatic and regular dishwashing soap, laundry soap, rubber gloves, large dog biscuits, toys, preferably more indestructible ones for the dogs, and cat toys, natural chew bones, stamps, file folders, tape, copy paper and other office supplies, fruits and vegetables for the barnyard animals and washable small blankets and rugs for the kennels.
With thanks and best wishes for the holidays.
Chef and owner
DeAnna’s
Lambertville
Drug war
causing problem
To the editor:
The policies of the drug war that are using our tax dollars to enforce the drug prohibition are moving us farther and farther away from developing a compassionate, reach-out-a-helping hand policy toward the personal ravages of drug abuse.
These policies focus most of our resources on law enforcement, legal trials, jail sentences, using racial bias and sending billions of dollars worth of war machinery and biological poisons in an attempt to eradicate the symptoms of our problems.
And somehow we feel that all these abhorrent actions are OK because of the presence of drugs in our culture. We have been brainwashed to believe that it is OK to allow our government to trounce on our human and civil rights for this great cause.
Even though we have been through prohibition with alcohol, a controlled legal drug, somehow our hindsight didn’t help us with our choices in how to deal with it a second time. Now, just as then, lives are being lost and wasted, and our resources go to causing, rather than alleviating the devastation.
Murders in poor neighborhoods, accidental police killings during busts, children being abused and jailed by police and good families destroyed by jail sentences. These last two we have experienced in our own small town.
But my point here, and one of the saddest consequences, is that after spending hundreds of billions of dollars on law enforcement and jails in the U.S., weapons of mass destruction and environmental poisons to South America, we have little money to help those succumbed to addiction.
I have had two personal experiences in Lambertville that I would like to share here. One young boy in our town had a heroin addiction. My wife and I bailed him out of jail and tried to help him get himself together, to attempt to show him that contrary to what the police and courts had told him, even though he had problems that led him to use drugs for escape, that his life was valuable and important.
His addiction was too entrenched, and if you understand heroin addiction, you would know that an addict needs long-term rehabilitation to ever have a chance of breaking it and dealing with the hopelessness that led him to it in the first place. Only then would he have a chance to have a life that would seem to him worthwhile living without medicating himself.
We got him into a very good rehabilitation center out of state, and it was to be a six-month program. After less than one month, he had to leave because his insurance company wouldn’t pay any more, and there was no other money available!
So as a society, we do not have the resources to care for our own except to punish them. I am sure the 29-month sentence of the son of one of our Lambertville families will end up costing us much more with the result most likely of inflicting a great amount of damage to his and his family’s life.
No one had to ask or beg for those resources! When our young ones are in trouble, we are quick to punish, slow to lend a helping hand.
Just this morning, I tried to help a friend down with an alcohol addiction, so depressed that he was not eating for days, only lying in his room medicating his sorrows with alcohol. Without some kind of intervention, he could die.
It took nearly 10 phone calls to find an organization that offered help. Some of the people are volunteers and extremely limited by funds as to what kind of help they could give.
As you can see, for all our professions of love, religion, compassion and righteousness, as a whole, we are not in a very good place. But there is a lot happening that is hopeful and a lot we can do. I will save that for another letter.
Lambertville
Many helped
fire victims
To the editor:
Last Monday, Nov. 27, my home was destroyed by the fire on North Union Street.
I am writing this letter because there is no way that I can personally thank all of the people who helped us on that day and every day since.
My daughter, Hannah, and I have been the recipients of extreme kindness, and I would like to tell each of you, many of you whose names I do not know, how much you are appreciated and will be remembered. I consider myself a very fortunate person to be a part of this community. Although Hannah and I lost our physical home, we have gained something nothing can ever take away – a home town.
Thank you Lambertville.
A special thanks to all of the firefighters and from my daughter a personal thank you to the fireman who went into the building to rescue our beloved cat, Freddy. He is a bit singed, inside and out, but he is going to be fine.
Hannah Schartel
Lambertville
Archeological
dig needed here
To the editor:
It is well known in New Hope that I am passionate about history and the preservation of our heritage.
I have taken many stands and stood out beyond the crowd to state my views and actively participate in historical preservation.
Recently, I have been involved in an archeological dig site in New Jersey, involving 40 archaeologists from four organizations. I was fortunate enough to be with the project team that uncovered British artifacts that had been buried and untouched for over 220 years since the British occupation of New Brunswick during the American Revolution.
With this dig we were more than surprised to come across the discovery of British buttons, including a 50th Regiment of Foot coat button, a 35th regiment officer’s silver gilt button, an enlisted man’s coat button, plus an American leather musket pouch.
Historical data states that in the region of these discoveries the 50th Regiment was supposed to have been disbanded. So why the button?
I am now part of the research team that will investigate this find. This is history in the unmaking. It evolves and changes with each new piece of information.
This is particularly relevant to New Hope. As far as I can research we have never had a professional archeological dig at any level in New Hope. Yet, George Washington’s army walked this ground several times.
Why don’t we have a vested interest in discovering what items of historical significance may be buried here, what could be found just around the corner?
New Hope