Donation Mess
Dear Editor: Please publish the attached photo.
It shows the terrible mess outside the donation area that greeted two of our White Elephant volunteers last Friday morning. Pilfering of donations left when the store is closed is a major problem. We need the public’s help. As you can see, the STOP sign was most prominent. We have continually asked the public to please not leave donations when the store is closed. The photo clearly shows why.
Not only does a mess like this take time to clear, but most of the items left behind become too dirty and damaged to sell. Only during our regular store hours do we have someone available to bring the donations inside. Our volunteers work many hours preparing items to sell and organizing the store prior to openings. They do not have the time to clean up after thoughtless people.
We respectfully ask the public to please help our dedicated White E volunteers by observing the STOP sign, thereby enabling them to use their time in a more productive fashion. We welcome donations on Mondays 6 to 8 p.m., Thursdays and Saturdays noon to 3 p.m.
Sitka White Elephant Shop
Volunteers
New Year 2019
Dear Editor: Hurray! A New Year! The REAL New Year: The first day after Labor Day!
In the Olden Days, many decades ago, in 1942 I walked down Lincoln Street to the Territorial School on the corner of Baranof Street. In the Olden Days, not quite so many decades ago, I was hustling my kids out the door for the exciting first day of the new academic year at Tudor School in Anchorage. I could almost hear the sigh of relief all across the country, hour by hour, as children marched off to school and parents collapsed for an extra cup of coffee. Or, as my sister Helen Finney did, held a neighborhood coffee to celebrate.
Now, even 10 years after moving back to Sitka, I still marvel at the sense of beginning, transition, suspense, hidden terror (?) on the first day of the academic year. And I miss it.
Or do I? The Back-to-School issue of the Sitka Sentinel in August amazed me with the utter complexity of being a parent these days. How do parents manage to get even one kid to the right bus stop at the right time? Let alone two kids, or three? To different schools? With all the stuff needed these days? Smart parents. Smart kids.
Congratulations to all the parents and kids who are settling into the new routines. And warm best wishes to all the employees of the school district who take on, cheerfully I hope, the tremendously important job of looking after them, and “educating them all,” whatever that means these days.
Personally, I remain forever grateful to the two school districts and people who managed to civilize my kids. I would pay another one – or maybe even two-mils in taxes – if that would avoid the horrid distress and senseless loss of neurological energy the darn budget uncertainties creates every year.
There. Now I shall retire for that extra cup of coffee. And relish the good memories of the first day of school. Year after year after year. First: Miss Tilson, then Mrs. Ewart, then Mrs.
Ramer….Ah. What fun!
Nancy Yaw Davis
Sitka High School ’54
