Public Restrooms
Dear Editor: This is in regard to the city’s concern for restrooms for tourists.
In the past 40 years, the Sitka Lutheran Church has provided a sparkling clean, well-lit, ADA-compliant restoom as a community service.
Included in this service are volunteers who welcome the visitors.
Shirley Anderson, Sitka
Local Newspaper
Dear Editor: As I read the editorial of Monday, March 7, from the printed edition of the Daily Sitka Sentinel, it resounded as an emergency alert. I was caught unprepared and unwilling to accept what I was reading. Daily life in Sitka without the Daily Sitka Sentinel will not be as fine as it has been with printed week day editions of the local newspaper.
So much of what there is to love about living in Sitka has been nourished over the decades in reports by award-winning journalism, photographs, editorials, letters to the editor, obituaries/celebrations of life, cards of thanks, arts and sports features and incalculable public service announcements, not to mention the police blotter, classifieds, advertisements, and calendars of events published in the Daily Sitka Sentinel.
The Sentinel provides consistent, reliable, balanced coverage of the news of our world, nation, state, region and of course, our local community. The Sentinel does this with dignity, not shying away from hard facts, yet always with wisdom, keeping a sense of humor and a “look toward the good,” to paraphrase the late Pauline Fredrickson, a dearly loved and respected contributor to Letters to the Editor.
Most national newspapers no longer have full-size pages or provide a depth and breadth of news coverage. Yet, Daily Sitka Sentinel has not wavered in providing this community with a fully printed newspaper, and provides online options for reading the Daily Sitka Sentinel. Anyone with a digital device is familiar with Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithmic pop-up “news” feeds. Sitka is fortunate the Daily Sitka Sentinel continues to provide and print a daily newspaper filled with objective news, written and edited by human journalists, and read by a diverse human community.
The Sentinel is the epitome of independent journalism reaching the highest standards of the free press. And freedom, as we all come to realize, is not free. Nonetheless, every non-holiday weekday throughout the past two-plus years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sentinel staff have provided daily editions of the printed newspaper in strategically placed boxes and local stores so that every person could easily obtain the newspaper. In this way, Daily Sitka Sentinel staff have kept us all connected through the isolation of sheltering in place.
How can Sitkans return in kind to ensure the continued publication of our local newspaper?
I am thankful for editors and publishers Thad and Sandy Poulson and for their decades of service – thank you for your preparations so readers are able to continue to purchase and subscribe to the Daily Sitka Sentinel for at least the year ahead. Thank you for providing a solid foundation for your family-owned, independent newspaper, vital to our thriving as a community, as we all step into the future.
Gail Johansen Peterson, Sitka
Auction Thanks
Dear Editor: On Saturday, April 2, the Friends of Sheldon Jackson Museum held our annual silent auction and bake sale and would like to thank the community for the many ways they contributed to making this event a success!
The Friends are so grateful to all the volunteers who set up, priced items, greeted guests, and helped with cleanup and checkout, working together seamlessly from start to finish! We were also fortunate to have so many generous donations of artwork, books and other items for the auction, allowing us to offer a wide variety of quality items to bid on. The Sitka Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall provided the perfect spacious location for the silent auction, and we are grateful for the permission to again use that space.
Our bake sale would not have been possible without the plethora of delicious treats baked by talented home cooks. A special thank you to WildFlour Cafe & Bakery and AC Lakeside for their delicious and generous donations to the bake sale.
Finally, thank you to the countless community members who stopped by, bid on items, and donated to the Friends. We are overwhelmed by your support!
This was an especially exciting year for this event because the proceeds will be matched dollar-for-dollar as part of the Match the Texans fundraising campaign! In fact, all donations will be matched until April 30. Donations can be made online at: FriendsofSJM.com/Match, by mail to: Friends of SJM, 104 College Drive, Sitka, AK 99835, or in-person at the Sheldon Jackson Museum.
Thank you, again, Sitka!
The Friends of
Sheldon Jackson Museum
