Category: Granite Views

Having grown up in America’s heartland, one of my fondest childhood memories is of the garden that our family planted every spring. It was huge by New England standards, average by Midwest standards. So many hours of labor and love went into the garden, but the rewards were well worth the effort. Early morning harvests (before the heat got too bad) led to bushels (literally) of tomatoes, green beans, corn, peas, potatoes, onions, lettuce, cabbage and anything else my mom decided to grow that year. After a few hours spent in the morning hauling in the goods, the afternoon’s tasks required my siblings and me to clean and prepare the harvest for my mother to work her magic. She would spend the afternoon canning and freezing the produce to be served and enjoyed in the cold of winter when it tasted every bit as delicious as the day it was harvested.

Today I am a pretend gardener here in New Hampshire. I have a vertical tower that utilizes hydroponics for my summer vegetables. My family loves the tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, and lettuces that our tower produces, but I am just playing at it. There is no canning or mass production going on, no feeding of the masses.

One wonders what type of garden the City of Manchester and Families in Transition (FIT) envisioned when federal funds were spent to purchase property, demolish buildings and address environmental concerns to create the Hollows Community Garden and Learning Center in 2018. According to a recent Union Leader article, the plan was for the garden to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to supplement meals served at Families in Transition Family Place Resource Center and Shelter. A grant funded a part-time garden manager until 2020, when funds were cut. Currently, the lot is vacant and overgrown. FIT is currently requesting permission from city aldermen to develop the land as affordable housing.

No doubt affordable housing will address a much greater need for Manchester than a community garden, and it falls into the wheelhouse of FIT. They have done it many times before and have done it well. Remembering from my Midwest roots what it takes to achieve a meaningful return from a garden, I think FIT is wise to pivot back to their core mission for this parcel of land. Unless there is funding, staff and volunteers, combined with experience and knowledge to drive the project forward, a community garden is doomed to end up exactly where it is today, a vacant and overgrown piece of land.

Even though I am a transplant who has lived in this state for more than 20 years, there are occasions when I am especially aware of just what it means to live in a state the motto of which is “Live Free or Die.” Such a recognition came recently. Although the details of the attempt on the part of certain residents of Croydon, New Hampshire, to halve the annual school budget, as well as the successful later counter to restore it, are well known, the lesson for me, as well for all of us, is one worthy of serious self-reflection.

Like many of my fellow Granite Staters, I live in a small town. I am fortunate that mine is one that has an efficient and useful website as well as a robust email alert system. My neighbors and I receive regular announcements of all town meetings as well as their agendas. These I read dutifully, but too often my engagement stops there and I fear I’m not alone in that regard. It is a rare agenda item that would draw me to attend a meeting in person. It must be some kind of utilitarian criterion that I’m applying in such situations, the logic of which would go something like this: “If it’s a really important issue for me that will be discussed or voted on, then I’ll go; if it’s not I won’t.”

What is lost in that logic, however, is the other, equally important aspect of democracy, namely a shared sense of responsibility for our community and a corresponding obligation to participate. Something akin to the latter is what I often feel on town voting day, when, standing in line with neighbors, friends and strangers, I feel a sense of solidarity that together we are doing something important and are seeing one another in the act of doing it, voting on issues of common importance. It is a sense of a common will for a commonweal.

This year will be my 13th serving as executive director of Leadership New Hampshire, an organization founded as a recommendation of the gubernatorial Commission on NH in the 21st Century. Its mission statement is “Building a community of informed and engaged leaders.” Every year, from a large pool of applicants from across our state, LNH selects 32 people to participate in a one-day-a-month intensive program that seeks to familiarize them with the needs, challenges, people and resources of our state, so that, being better informed about our state and its communities, the graduates — and now, in its 30th year, there are more than 1,000 of them — will get even more engaged in their communities, region or state. But the “special chemistry” of LNH is the sense of solidarity the graduates develop over the 10-month together.

It does truly take a community, precisely because the members of one need to feel a sense of community. The people of Croydon found that out the hard way.

by Jeff Rapsis

Look up! You just may see a student-built airplane in the skies.

Such a sight is likely to become more common in years to come thanks to an innovative program pioneered by the Manchester School District.

The program involves students at the Manchester School of Technology, the district’s Career and Technical Education Center. (Years ago, it was known as the “vo-tech.”)

The school is well-known for its home-building program: Each year, teams of students build an actual house, complete with plumbing, wiring and so on. When it’s done, the house gets sold.

Three years ago, the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire, working with educational consultant Tango Flight, approached the school with the idea of doing the same thing but with an airplane.

A student-built plane? What could go wrong?

Three years later, the first student-built airplane — an all-metal Van’s Aircraft RV-12iS two-seat light sport aircraft — is now undergoing final inspection before taking to the skies. Later, the completed airplane will be sold, with the proceeds (about $100,000) to be used to buy the hardware and components for the next airplane.

The net cost to taxpayers: $0.

How is that possible? The nonprofit Aviation Museum raised about $350,000 in program start-up costs from the local business community, with most of the funds coming through the sale of Community Development Finance Authority tax credits. The program will continue to be funded largely through the sale of finished aircraft.

Manchester was only the fourth school district in the nation to attempt a student plane-building project on the Tango Flight model, in which mentors from outside the school district (in this case, volunteers from the Aviation Museum) work with high school students to complete a complex kit-based airplane.

Today, more than two dozen districts around the country are embarking on student plane-building projects using the method pioneered in Manchester. And students are getting hands-on experience essential to building tomorrow’s workforce, in aerospace and many other fields.

Bottom line: The student plane-building project at the Manchester School of Technology is a great example of what can happen when an area’s nonprofit and business community collaborate with local public schools on innovative programs.

Or, to put it another way: when we work together, the sky’s the limit!

Jeff Rapsis is Associate Publisher of the Hippo, and also executive director of the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire.

From war to climate change, gun violence to inflation, it can seem that everything is going wrong. A recent conversation with Becky Field, New Hampshire photographer and immigrant advocate, reminded me that there is something each of us can do: We can welcome the stranger. Caring for one another is the first, best step we can take to heal our world.

My parents demonstrated this years ago.

During the Balkan Wars in the early 1990s, Mum and Dad greeted an exhausted Bosnian refugee family at the Manchester airport. They hosted them in their farmhouse for a month while others worked to find them housing, health care and jobs. Tense and chain-smoking, the father finally began to relax while helping Dad “pick rocks” in a field.

Over the years, my mother chatted with the mother in the grocery store or at a local event. Mum delighted in sharing that the children were doing well in school, the mother was in job training, and their citizenship applications were in progress.

Decades later, my father spent his last months in nursing care. One difficult night I stayed by his side as late as I could, agonized at leaving. When the new LNA came in, Dad smiled, weakly but warmly. It was the Bosnian mother. As luck or God would have it, she was there to help in our family’s time of need just as my parents had been in theirs.
When I bumped into the older daughter, we talked about our parents’ encounter. She wrote on Facebook, “Saw [one of] the family that first welcomed my family to [New Hampshire]. They housed us and treated us like family. Years later my sister and mom cared for their parents. This is to say that no kind act goes unnoticed.”

Despite the enormity of today’s challenges, individual actions and interactions matter. In response to war, natural disasters and forced migration, we can make our state welcoming, whether by volunteering with or donating to New Hampshire’s two refugee resettlement organizations, International Institute of New England (Manchester) or Ascentria Care Alliance (Concord), or by supporting local public transportation, education and affordable housing. Simply offering friendship may be the most valuable effort, impacting newcomers and welcomers alike. Caring for each other makes a world of difference in how we face problems and offers surprising benefits.

My flight from San Francisco to Boston was full and, as I learned, many of the passengers were on their way to graduation ceremonies across New England. Mine was an aisle seat midway in the Economy section, and across sat — as I found out later — a grandmother traveling with her son and wife to attend the college graduation of the granddaughter. Before long, the grandmother and I began exchanging pleasantries regarding everything from how Covid had curtailed our travel for the last two years to how we each were planning to spend the long weekend. She was excited about her granddaughter’s forthcoming graduation as she herself had graduated from the same college 70 years earlier. She confided to me her age: 92!

That detail of her age quickly led us into a conversation about college life and then the changes she’d lived through over her long life. As our topics moved to more political matters, I noticed other passengers had put down their reading and appeared to be listening. Because she was a bit hard of hearing, I was speaking a tad louder and so it was probably easy for folks seated in front or behind us to catch snatches of our exchange. But we were surprised when a passenger immediately ahead of us turned around and offered a thoughtful comment on our discussion of the forthcoming midterms. That must have prompted the woman behind me to join us also and before long we had a robust four-way conversation going.

The five-plus-hour flight passed quickly as we talked nearly all the way. It was clear we were not all of the same mind about current events and personalities, but we listened respectfully even when differences were very pronounced. As our plane began its approach to Logan Airport, the grandmother leaned over to us and announced, “You know, we’ve just had a substantive conversation ‘across the aisle.’ As a country, we need a great deal more of this.”

Ours was a fortuitous experience because such candid and civil conversations across divides of whatever kind are rare because they are hard and sometimes risky to have these days. In her book Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Art of Living, Krista Tippett offers “Generous Listening” as a way to learn about both others and ourselves by seeking, through respectful questions, to understand another person’s views. On that flight, four strangers leaned across a physical as well as an ideological aisle. I certainly felt better for it.

Some of you will remember the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” that Clinton’s campaign used in 1992 against President George H.W. Bush. This phrase keeps coming to mind while perusing President Biden’s recent rosy assessment of the current economic climate in the United States. In a speech given by President Biden on June 3 in Delaware, he noted, “A recent survey from the Federal Reserve found that more Americans feel financially comfortable than at any time since the survey began in 2013.”

I am curious to see the details that drove those results, given that Americans are facing a myriad of economic issues. Annual inflation hit 8.6% percent in May versus the current 5 percent pace of wage increases. Gas prices have risen above $5 per gallon. The stock market continues to flirt with bear market territory. While low unemployment is good, too much of a good thing can work against the economy. When too low, it creates negative consequences for businesses in reduced productivity and triggers inflation. A tight labor force is exacerbating shortages in the supply chain and impacting the service industry. There is also the war in Ukraine. And, finally, a shortage of baby formula.

While the current administration tends to put the blame for most of these items on either the war, Covid or the prior administration, Politico reported that Treasury Secretary Yellen publicly admitted that the administration got it wrong on inflation. Trying to recover, the Fed announced the biggest rate hike in 28 years, 75 basis points, and indicated a similar increase could be coming in July.

New Hampshire is certainly not immune to what is happening nationally. According to the Union Leader, Liberty Utilities recently filed to double its price per kilowatt hour, and Eversource is expected to follow suit. It’s an election year, and while Gov. Sununu remains popular, five Republican candidates have filed to run against him in the primary. I happen to like Gov. Sununu and think he has done a fine job leading our state through a tumultuous time. However, voters quickly forget the past when it is time to go to the polls and focus on what their current point of pain is. Voters likely won’t accept finger-pointing at Washington for economic woes in New Hampshire. As a reminder, “It’s the economy….”

With age come certain changes, one of which is that I find myself attending more memorial services than weddings these days. This week, it was to attend virtually the Celebration of Life for the actor Emilio Delgado. While all services for the departed carry the deep sorrow of loss, they also offer those so gathered an opportunity to reflect on their experiences of having been part of the late person’s life. The collective remembrances of those times not only console; they also inspire those of us who remain behind to assess our own place in the world.

As did so many others, and as a parent, I first came to know Emilio as Luis, the Fix-it Shop owner on the children’s television series Sesame Street. (He played the same role on U.S. television longer than any other Mexican-American actor.) My wife and I were sparing in the time we allotted our two children to watch TV and so Sesame Street became a special fixture in their early lives and the program inspired their love of Spanish. Many have extolled the early childhood education philosophy that informed the creativity of the program and noted its appeal to not only children but their parents as well. For our family, however, the character Luis was a standout for his gentleness, self-deprecating humor and optimism.

Many years later, when we lived in Ashland, Oregon, our family became friends with Emilio, his wife, Carole, and their daughter Lauren. For several years, it was our good fortune to encounter this wonderful person in real life as well as on the TV. There simply was no difference between the lovable character in the series and the man in our living room or at the supermarket. His kindness was contagious, his optimism uplifting, and his generosity exemplary. On those occasions when we were with him and a stranger who recognized him approached, we saw not only the genuine affection the person had for him but his for one of his admirers. It was never ego-driven, but a true encounter of mutual respect.

As the many speakers at Emilio’s memorial service shared their recollections, the rest of us learned even more of his insatiable curiosity, his love of books and learning, his musical accomplishments, and his deep and long-standing commitment to social justice. On that latter point, one friend cited Cornel West, who wrote, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” His life of activism was exemplary of that value.

Through his life and the character of Luis, Emilio Delgado brought the best to children and adults alike. His passing challenges those who remain behind to carry on those values.

You can contact Steve Reno at stepreno@gmail.com.

2020 marked 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, assuring women the right to vote. New Hampshire organizations had planned events from parades to readers’ theater, from tea parties to lectures about the individuals who fought for equal rights. Instead of learning and celebrating, we spent 2020 ducking Covid. Despite #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, too many ignored how civil rights were being attacked.

Shout out to two state historians who kept going with their research about the fight for women’s suffrage: Elizabeth Dubrulle and Beth Salerno. Their work, published in the magazine of the New Hampshire Historical Society, is inspiring. The lessons in “No Longer Denied: New Hampshire Women and the Right to Vote” should be taught in every school. Their credentials illustrate the painstaking work that goes into the writing of history. Politicians and activists get the headlines, but historians provide the context.

Elizabeth Dubrulle, director of education and public programs for the Historical Society and editor of its magazine, is a down-to-earth dynamo. She earned a master’s from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with emphases in early New England history and historical editing. She was the associate editor for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts’ edition of the Correspondence of Thomas Hutchinson and provided editorial support for the Writings of Henry D. Thoreau. She also wrote Goffstown Reborn: Transformations of a New England Town (2009). Sen. David Watters, UNH professor emeritus and co-editor of The Encyclopedia of New England, told me he considered her town history one of the best.

Beth Salerno is a professor of American history at Saint Anselm College, where she focuses on women’s history, the history of citizenship and public history. She earned her doctorate in American and comparative women’s history at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. As chair of New Hampshire Humanities’ grants committee, she came across as both gentle and modest, articulate and fierce. Her book, Sister Societies: Women’s Antislavery Organizations in Antebellum America (2005), documented the emerging networks among women reformers. Her preface, co-written with Dubrulle, and article ‘“A Woman in Politics!”’ set the stage and the bar for the rest of the publication.

Did you know that New Hampshire ratified the 19th amendment in 1919 but shot down a similar amendment to the state constitution two years later? If the 19th Amendment hadn’t become law in between, New Hampshire women would have been left out. This week’s news of the Supreme Court’s inclination to strike down Roe v. Wade shows how fragile women’s rights still are. We would know that if we paid attention to history.

Just like New England running on Dunkin’, New Hampshire runs on nonprofits. According to the New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits, nonprofits generate $11 billion in revenue for New Hampshire and employ 15 percent of our workforce. In our “live free or die” state, nonprofits fill critical needs in lieu of the government and their sizes range from large and complex to quite small. When one of these nonprofits fails, it has a ripple effect throughout the community and state. Such was the case when Lakes Region General Hospital filed for bankruptcy in 2020.

The Attorney General and New Hampshire Charitable Trusts Unit recently released their report of their review to determine whether LRGH’s board had breached its fiduciary duties and whether any insights could be gained from the experience. As is the case with nonprofits in general, the LRGH board of trustees owed fiduciary duties to the hospital considering its purpose. This includes the duty of care, i.e. a duty to be adequately informed when making important decisions for the charity. Breaches of duty of care include lack of attention in overseeing the affairs of the organization, poor decision-making, and waste of assets. The report did not find fault with LRGH’s attention in oversight. However, it did find that in making major decisions the board deferred too much to the recommendations of long-term executives and failed to properly challenge the executives.

The report further notes that nonprofits, like for-profit businesses, sometimes fail. In this case, long-term executives pushed through a capital expansion plan with the board despite warning signs in the local market and national health care trends. While the board was composed of many business leaders and experts in various areas, they deferred to their trusted CEO and CFO. The report concludes with solid advice for trustees of all nonprofit boards including continual training and education, respectfully questioning the CEO and holding the CEO accountable, making sure decisions are consistent with the mission, and consulting with outside experts before making major decisions.

Serving on a nonprofit board can be a rewarding experience, particularly when it fulfills a mission one is passionate about. However, with that service comes responsibility to the nonprofit and the community it serves. Nonprofits are, in fact, businesses in that they must be able to meet their financial obligations. The best decisions are made when input is received from many different perspectives, and this is a hallmark of effective boards. When trustees are not prepared or engaged, and defer to senior management, they fail in their service to that nonprofit.

I worked for over seven years to increase awareness of an important health condition that warrants everyone’s attention as 1 in 10 of us have it, and 1 in 3 of us are at high risk of developing the mostly preventable version — diabetes.

Every year as November approached, we would see and begin the preparations for Diabetes Awareness Month, and yet I would think to myself: “Every day is diabetes awareness day!” Thus my mixed feelings toward awareness days even as I knew that 1 in 5 people with diabetes don’t know they have it, and more than 8 in 10 individuals with prediabetes are unaware. This for a health condition that has the potential for significant improvement or control, and potential prevention — if we have the understanding of how to care for ourselves and manage our diabetes or prediabetes.

There are other kinds of awareness events, such as National Wear Red Day (on Feb. 4, this year), which raises attention to heart disease being the No. 1 killer of women, and all of February being American Heart Month; June being Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month, and Sept. 5 to Sept. 11 being National Suicide Prevention Week. The calendar is now full with these kinds of awareness events and it’s difficult to register their existence, let alone keep track of them. Which has helped me now realize there actually can be a benefit to focusing much-needed attention, and has me wondering: As all of us are touched by one or more of these health issues, how do we support and amplify each other’s concerns so that we can all, together, contribute to building a healthier future?

Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. And we have long considered the United States to be the land of opportunity. Yet our current standing among developed countries as having the worst maternal mortality — where most maternal deaths are preventable — reminds us that we face a significant threat to the opportunity for all to thrive and contribute to this country’s future prosperity. There are many contributing factors for our current situation — some relate to individuals, many relate to our living conditions, and even more relate to systemic factors such as the availability of health insurance coverage, access to health care, bias that may be built into how things are done and more. Thankfully, more attention is being focused on helpful policy solutions that impact how care is provided in the clinical setting as well as the supports that can help all birthing people have healthy and positive perinatal experiences and contribute to community well-being.

This year April 11 through April 17 marked Black Maternal Health Week — I hope we will all be curious to learn why we should all care enough to be aware.