Category: Quality Of Life

Badges battle it out

The first Inferno of the Badges, a fundraiser and fitness challenge that will have police, fire, corrections and military personnel compete for a title and to help a good cause, is looking for more teams to make the inaugural event a success. Teams of five will perform CrossFit-type exercises, and the one with the best time gets to choose the charity that the event’s proceeds will be donated to. The Inferno is a community effort: CrossFit of New Hampshire and the Manchester Police Department have helped organize it, McIntyre is providing its facilities for free, McHugh Funeral Home in Manchester is a sponsor, and Messy Mike’s Barbecue from Derry is providing free lunch to competitors and volunteers.

Score: +1

Comment: Though this first Inferno of the Badges, happening Nov. 17, is just for police, fire, corrections and military personnel, if it’s successful it will become an annual event that the public will be invited to watch, according to Bibiana Rummler of McHugh Funeral Home.

Something fishy

Elevated levels of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) have been detected in fish tissue samples in five lakes, according to a press release from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services. There are now new and more restrictive fish consumption limits for those lakes: Beaver Lake in Derry, Robinson Pond in Hudson, Horseshoe Pond in Merrimack, Canobie Lake in Salem and Cobbetts Pond in Windham. According to the release, the mercury-based statewide guideline of fish consumption for most freshwater fish is one meal per month for young children and pregnant woman and four per month for adults and children 7 years old or older; in comparison, many of the recommended guidelines for fish consumption in these lakes are more restrictive. The levels of PFOS in Robinson and Horseshoe ponds, for example, are high enough that kids younger than 7 should not eat any amount of any freshwater fish taken from those water bodies.

Score: -1

Comment: NHDES pointed out in the release that there is no known risk to catching and handling these fish, so catch-and-release fishing is not impacted.

Three more cases of Jamestown Canyon virus

Three adults have tested positive for Jamestown Canyon virus, a viral infection transmitted through the bite of an infected mosquito, according to a press release from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. The adults are from Loudon, Pittsfield and Rumney, and they are the second, third and fourth detections of the virus in the state this season. According to the release, the adults from Rumney and Pittsfield were hospitalized with neurological symptoms but are now recovering at home, and the person from Loudon was not hospitalized and is in good health.

Score: -1

Comment: “It is important to remember the season of mosquitos is longer than just the summer months. Mosquitos can continue to transmit infections like Jamestown Canyon Virus until there is a mosquito-killing hard frost,” Dr. Benjamin Chan, New Hampshire State Epidemiologist, said in the release.

Letter a scam

A consumer alert has been issued by the Attorney General’s Office after scammers sent a fraudulent letter purporting to be from the Office to a New Hampshire resident. According to a press release, it appears to be issued on Attorney General’s Office official letterhead and has a forged signature from the New Hampshire’s Deputy Attorney General. It claims the recipient’s identity has been used in connection with a purchase through an online retailer and warns that any of the accounts linked with the resident’s Social Security number will be shut down.

Score: -1

Comment: The resident called the number in the letter and was asked to buy gift cards from a local retailer and send photos of the gift card numbers, and to send cash through the mail with personal identifying information, the release said.

QOL score: 77

Net change: -2

QOL this week: 75

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire? Let us know at [email protected].

Three cheers for the Chicken Tenders!

The New Hampshire Fisher Cats will become the Manchester Chicken Tenders for one game at Delta Dental Stadium during the 2022 baseball season. According to a press release, it’s a tribute to Manchester’s culinary history: The chicken tender was invented by the Puritan Restaurant in 1974. The temporary jerseys will read “Manchester Chicken Tenders Est. 1974,” while the hats will feature either The Classic Chicken Tender, the Buffalo Chicken Tender or the Coconut Chicken Tender — and it’ll be the fans who decide. Pre-sale orders of all three versions of the baseball hat are available now at nhfishercats.com, and the one that gets the most sales will be worn by the team for the game (date to be determined).

Score: +1

Comment: QOL thinks a massive amount of Puritan chicken tenders and vats of dipping sauces should be available at the concessions during this game.

Third safest state in the country

Last week, personal-finance website WalletHub released its report on 2021’s Safest States in America, and the Granite State came in 3rd, thanks to several key factors. According to the report, New Hampshire has the fewest murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita and the fewest fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 full-time workers, as well as the second lowest number of assaults per capita, the 5th lowest number of fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel, and the 8th lowest loss amounts from climate disasters per capita.

Score: +1

Comment:New Hampshire was edged out by two neighbors: Vermont, which ranked No. 1, and Maine.

An early start to giving

Because of ongoing supply chain issues, Tower of Toys is getting an early start in collecting unwrapped children’s toys, sports equipment, art supplies, cosmetics, movie certificates and gift cards to benefit children and families in need. According to a press release, this will be the 10th Tower of Toys, where donations are formed into a toy-filled tower at the Atrium of the Beacon Building at 814 Elm St. in Manchester. Toys are being accepted now through Thursday, Dec. 16, for toy distribution on Dec. 18 and Dec. 19. According to the release, the Tower of Toys collected 2,500 presents, $1,400 in gift cards, and $15,600 in monetary donations (used to purchase additional gifts) for 1,500 children.

Score: +1

Comment: Donations can be brought to Red Arrow Diner Corporate Headquarters (814 Elm St.), or you can order gifts online and ship them directly to 814 Elm St., Suite 102, Manchester, 03101. Online monetary donations are welcomed to help sponsors purchase gifts for all age groups; visit facebook.com/toweroftoysnh or redarrowdiner.com for a PayPal link and online QR code.

QOL score: 74

Net change: +3

QOL this week: 77

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire? Let us know at [email protected].

Gas grumbles

It’s been eight years since gas prices were this high; on Oct. 25, 2013, the average price of a gallon of gas in New Hampshire was $3.33, according to GasBuddy’s daily survey. This year on Oct. 25, the average price was $3.29 per gallon, up 8 cents from last week, 25 cents from last month, and $1.26 from this time last year.

Score: -2

Comment: On Oct. 25, there was a 46-cent difference between highest and lowest prices per gallon in the state, according to GasBuddy, with the cheapest station at $3.08 per gallon and the most expensive at $3.54 per gallon.

And the weather’s not great either…

If we’re going to complain about gas prices, we might as well complain about the weather too! After a pretty decent stretch of warmer fall weather, the past few days have been a reality check, with temps dropping, snow coating roads in northern New Hampshire and a Nor’easter bringing inches of rain to southern New Hampshire.

Score: 0

Comment: At least it’s not snowing in this part of the state yet, and we should make it past Halloween without seeing the white stuff. It’s been years, but QOL has vivid memories of trick-or-treating in the snow, so it’s always a win to get past that date without it.

Mixed economic bag for older adults

New Hampshire tied with Utah for second place in a recent MagnifyMoney study that looked at which states offer a better financial environment for retirement. The two states have a poverty rate of 6.2 percent for the 65 and older population and came in just behind Vermont, whose poverty rate is 6.1 percent. But when looking at other key factors that play into retirement-age economic conditions, including home ownership rate and rate of adults with retirement income, New Hampshire was on middle ground, coming in at No. 30.

Score: 0 (because low poverty is good, but ranking 30th for states where older adults are best positioned for retirement is nothing to brag about)

Comment: The “housing cost burdened” rate brought the state’s overall rating down, landing in 6th in that category with a rate of 36.2 percent (compared to top state West Virginia’s housing cost burdened rate of 17.4 percent).

Tuberculosis at Concord High

Concord School District Superintendent Kathleen Murphy sent out a notice to the school community on Oct. 13 saying that the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services had identified a positive, active case of tuberculosis, which is an airborne infectious disease, at Concord High School. According to the notice, the district held an online community meeting the following day to provide information and answer questions. Infectious disease control experts said during the meeting that the case of tuberculosis is a “likely low risk event,” according to an Oct. 15 report from the Concord Monitor.

Score: -1

Comment:Since 2011, there have been 123 documented cases of tuberculosis in New Hampshire, 18 of which were reported in Merrimack County, according to the Monitor.

QOL score: 77

Net change: -3

QOL this week: 74

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire? Let us know at [email protected].

Your call cannot be completed as dialed

Don’t forget to dial 603 when you’re making a local call — after Oct. 24 it will be mandatory, and calls that are dialed without the area code won’t go through. The new requirement is in preparation for next July’s national rollout of the 988 National Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Crisis Lifeline, which will replace the current number: 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255). Starting next July, people will be able to dial 988 and reach the lifeline, but all 35 states that have 988 exchanges are required to switch to 10-digit dialing. In New Hampshire, 988 is an exchange in Portsmouth.

QOL Score: -1 (because QOL will definitely forget to update all of QOL’s contacts’ numbers before Sunday)

Comments: Of course, QOL does recognize that it’s an effort worth making if it means people can reach 988 services when they need it. Meanwhile, since all New Hampshire numbers still have a 603 area code, Hippo won’t be adding them to phone numbers in the paper. Consider it implied.

A baseball Marvel

Minor League Baseball has a new three-year partnership with Marvel Entertainment, creating an event series that will take place in Minor League ballparks — including Delta Dental Stadium, home of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats — starting in 2022. According to a press release, 96 Minor League teams will participate in the series, called “Marvel’s Defenders of the Diamond” during the next three baseball seasons. All teams will host at least one Marvel Super Hero themed game each year, wearing special-edition Marvel-branded jerseys during the game with other Marvel-themed activities and promotions taking place throughout the game, the release said.

Score: +1

Comment: Marvel will also create a Marvel’s Defenders of the Diamond comic book for fans that will be distributed in ballparks like Delta Dental Stadium, according to the release.

Holiday event cancellations starting already

Last week, the Nashua North vs. Nashua South Turkey Bowl was canceled “after thoughtful consideration,” according to a press release. There will be no Wednesday night or Thursday morning game this Thanksgiving. According to the release, the cancellation was made after the Nashua Holiday Stroll was canceled, and as Covid numbers have continued to rise in the Nashua community.

Score: -1

Comment: “Putting our students, staff, and their families in an atmosphere where many spectators may have traveled from other parts of the country to attend the game while visiting family in Nashua seems like a needless risk,” the release said. “We want everyone to remain safe and healthy during their holiday season and into the winter athletic season.”

Addressing the mental health crisis

The state is in the process of buying Hampstead Hospital, an effort to provide better mental health services in New Hampshire. NAMI New Hampshire praised the planned purchase in a press release, saying it was “a significant step forward in addressing the current mental health crisis, which has hit youth and young adults especially hard during the pandemic.” According to NAMI, New Hampshire youth and young adults are reporting significant increases in stress, anxiety and depression since the start of the pandemic, and the number of youth who need inpatient mental health services has more than tripled since then.

Score: 0 (-1 for the dire need, +1 for the efforts the state is taking to address that need)

Comment: On Oct. 13, there were 18 youth staying in emergency rooms around the state while they awaited inpatient admission, according to the release from NAMI. “The process of holding a young person in an emergency room, with minimal treatment, is traumatizing for youth and their families,” NAMI wrote.

QOL score: 78

Net change: -1

QOL this week: 77

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire? Let us know at [email protected].

Yeah, you heard that right

That boom you heard Sunday might have been a meteor, scientists are saying. According to a report from WMUR on Oct. 11, the loud boom followed by a slight rumble that Granite Staters reported hearing and feeling around 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 10 was not an earthquake or military activity; the U.S. Geological Survey said there were no earthquakes in New England on Sunday, and the Federal Aviation Administration said there was no military plane activity over the state, either. People from more than 40 cities and towns in southern and central New Hampshire, and from northern Massachusetts and eastern Maine, reported hearing the noise, which scientists told WMUR was likely a sonic boom caused by a meteor that entered the atmosphere at supersonic speed and then quickly burned up.

Score: -1 (because, according to WMUR, the cloudy weather Sunday meant it’s likely nobody actually saw it and the mystery might not definitively be solved)

Comment: “The Earth is always passing through this sort of dust of sporadic meteoroids,” Ryan Volz of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said in the WMUR report. “And mostly, they’re very small, dust-sized particles, and they’re creating meteor events that no one notices. … But sometimes, you get these bigger meteoroids, and they create something that everybody notices.”

Too many bullies

New Hampshire ranks 8th in the nation for 2021’s States with the Biggest Bullying Problems, according to a recent report from personal-finance website WalletHub, which compared 47 states and the District of Columbia in areas like “bullying-incident rate” and “percentage of high school students bullied online.” For the latter, the Granite State came in at No. 1 — not a top slot to be proud of. The state ranked 9th for bullying prevalence and 8th for anti-bullying laws (meaning we don’t have nearly as many as most other states).

Score: -2

Comment: On the bright side, New Hampshire placed 40th for bullying impact and treatment, meaning we’re not doing so bad in terms of how bullying is negatively affecting kids and in the way we’re helping victims, through things like school counselor-to-student ratios.

Skateboarding, knitting and more for mental health

More than 1,000 participants on 123 teams participated in NAMIWalks NH, the Granite State’s largest mental health awareness and suicide prevention event, on Oct. 9. According to a press release, the virtual event had participants kayaking, hiking, horseback riding, skateboarding, knitting, drawing and more to raise awareness and inspire hope. More than $180,000 has been raised for NAMIWalks NH Your Way 2021, and fundraising remains open through Nov. 30 at NAMIWalksNH.org.

Score: +1

Comment: You can see what local participants did to raise awareness for mental health during this event on NAMI New Hampshire’s Facebook page.

Trick or treat?

With outdoor trick-or-treating being encouraged by Dr. Anthony Fauci, health experts are saying that this year’s Halloween activities should look more normal, according to a report from WMUR. Yet while cases in New Hampshire have started to come down from their mid-September high, the numbers were much lower last year (685 active cases compared to nearly 4,000 as of Oct. 11, according to the NH Department of Health and Human Services).

Score: 0 (+1 for an OK to trick-or-treating but -1 because of those persistent high numbers)

Comment:QOL hopes to see more trick-or-treaters this year but will still be following Covid safety precautions when handing out candy; that increase in active cases compared to last year is scary!

QOL score: 80

Net change: -2

QOL this week: 78

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire? Let us know at [email protected].

Back-to-school stress…

According to the Back to School Stress Index created by online learning platform Brainly, New Hampshire was the third most stressed out state when it came to going back to school this year, after Montana and Pennsylvania. The study was conducted between Sept. 18 and Sept. 25 and measured stress indicators on Google Trends relative to geographical location, with search queries related to the reopening of schools, Covid-19 prevention, school guidelines and homeschooling requirements.

Score: -1

Comment: To put a more positive spin on it, the number of Granite Staters’ school-related Google searches could just as easily mean that we like to be prepared and are invested in our kids’ health and education.

…and school event success

The first CelebratED MHT! was held Sept. 18 at Veterans Park to celebrate Manchester’s students, families and staff, with more than 30 city departments and local organizations coming together to offer free fun for the community. Free books, food and drinks, entertainment and family activities were part of the fun, but the point of the event was to recognize all the good that’s happening in the Queen City’s schools.

Score: +1

Comment: Organizers are starting to plan for next year’s event. Send an email to [email protected] if you’re interested in being part of the volunteer team.

A’s for two NH liberal arts colleges

The nonprofit American Council of Trustees and Alumni recently released its annual “What Will They Learn? 2021–22 report,” which gave A’s to two New Hampshire liberal arts colleges: Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in Warner and Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack. According to a press release, 1,110 U.S. colleges and universities were graded on their core curriculum requirements, and only 24 received As. The survey examines course requirements in seven foundational subject areas: Composition, Literature, intermediate-level Foreign Language, U.S. Government or History, Economics, Mathematics and Natural Science. To earn an “A,” a school must require all students to study at least six of these subjects, the release said.

Score: +1

Comment: New Hampshire has some big, and big-name, colleges (Dartmouth, UNH, SNHU), but this report is a good reminder that there are smaller, less well-known academic gems here too.

Hundreds of fires

So far this year in New Hampshire 628 people have received assistance from the American Red Cross of Northern New England in the wake of 278 home fires, according to a press release. There is typically a spike in home fires in the winter months, the release said, so those numbers will likely go up.

Score: -1

Comment: To combat the anticipated increase in fires as the cold weather arrives, the state Department of Safety and the Red Cross are stepping up efforts this Fire Prevention Week (now through Oct. 9) to encourage people to test smoke alarms and make an escape plan.

QOL score: 80

Net change: 0

QOL this week: 80

What’s affecting your Quality of Life here in New Hampshire? Let us know at [email protected].