Hello fellow Chathamites,

The Carolina Brewery Farmer’s Market is now accepting applications for vendors for our 2010 farmer’s market.  The market season will begin on Saturday April 24th and will conclude the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  We are very excited about our second year and look forward to continue growing this market and supporting the local agricultural community.

For the 2010 rules or any other questions you may have about the market, please contact me at:

marketmanager@carolinabrewery.com

Thanks for your support, and we look forward to seeing you all again very soon!

-Neville Handel
Market Manager

On behalf of Chatham Habitat for Humanity and Family Violence & Rape Crisis Services, I’d like to thank everyone who helped make our recent Funky Fashion Show & Burrito Bash a success. The event not only raised funds for two important causes, it also demonstrated how beautiful our community is when we come together for a common good.

A special thanks goes out to those who cast their votes for their favorite fashions; to the General Store Café; to the Bad Mothers who provided live music; to Mistress of Ceremonies Pam Smith; to the many volunteers who helped make this happen; and to our models: Victoria Cox, M.J. Edwall, Nona Mensah, County Commissioners George Lucier, Tom Vanderbeck, and Mike Cross, Jane Allen Wilson, Mark Hewitt, Melody Eggen, Stephanie Markunas, Dani Strause, Betty Wilson, Sheriff Richard Webster, Howard Alston, Julia Kennedy, Lesley Landis, and Pittsboro Mayor Randy Voller.

We also thank The Fearrington House and Bonnie Barrow for donating our prizes and to James Steele and Shannon Bueker for donating our silent auction items.

Supporters like you help make our good work possible.

Bett W. Essen
Development & Communications Coordinator

Chatham Habitat for Humanity
467 West Street ~ PO Box 883
Pittsboro, N.C. 27312
(919) 542-0794, ext. 222

www.ChathamHabitat.org

I noticed our bill in February for propane from Greene’s Fuel was high ($3.26/gallon) and folks on the chatlist were reporting various prices for propane from different vendors. We decided to switch to Jenkins Gas in Pittsboro based on chatlist comments that their prices were fair and service was good. I called Greene’s and they said we could do this even though we bought the tank from them (Jenkins could give them a tank to make the switch). Jenkins was happy to do this. By the time they had come out to check out the size of our tank and called Greene’s a month or so had gone by. They called Greene’s to make the arrangements and did not get a return call. They called Greene’s 7 times and did not get a return call. In the meantime, Greene’s came out to our house and made another delivery (yes, at $3.26 per gallon!). Pretty sneaky business tactics. I would reommend staying away from this outfit. Kristine Kelsey Windy Meadows

Three award-winning Southern authors will discuss the inspirations for their writing at an April 21 luncheon to benefit the Chatham County Literacy Council.

Doris Betts, Lee Smith and Randall Kenan also will take questions and sign books during the Authors for Literacy event at Governors Club. The program will begin at 11:30 a.m. with a silent auction featuring items ranging from art by well-known local artists to an adult tricycle to dinners at popular area restaurants.

Betts is a longtime Chatham County Literacy Council supporter and tutor who served on the group=E2=80=99s board of directors and now is on the advisory board. The renowned Southern author of six novels and three story collections is a three-time winner of the Sir Walter Raleigh Awards for Fiction and a winner of the Southern Book Award for =E2=80=9CSouls Raised from the Dead.=E2=80=9D Betts, who lives in Pittsboro, taught creative writing at UNC-Chapel Hill for 32 years.

Smith, a resident of Hillsborough, is publishing her 11th novel, =E2=80=9C Mr. Darcy Meets the Blue-Eyed Stranger,=E2=80=9D this spring. Her other works include =E2=80=9COn Agate Hill,=E2=80=9D which was set in this area, and =E2=80=9CThe Last Girls,=E2=80=9D which won the Southern Book Critics Circle Award. She taught creative writing at North Carolina State University for 19 years.

Kenan, who studied with Betts, has written several books, including =E2=80==9CA Visitation of Spirits=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9CLet the Dead Bury Their Dead.=E2=80=9D His fiction is centered on what it=E2=80=99s like to be black and gay in the rural South. The UNC-Chapel Hill English professor is a winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature and the North Carolina Award for Literature.

The deadline for registering for Authors for Literacy is April 14. Half of the $50 per person fee will be a tax-deductible charitable contribution to the Chatham County Literacy Council. To register online and pay via PayPal, go to http://chathamliteracy.org/upcomingevents.html. To register by mail, write a check to CCLC and send it to CCLC, P.O. Box 1696, Pittsb=
oro, NC 27312. Please include the names of those attending.

For more information, contact Brenda Rogers at 968-0833 or Karen Kolias at 967-6676.

The Chatham County Literacy Council is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and a United Way-affiliated agency. It works in partnership with Central Carolina Community College to enlist volunteers and to provide free tutoring services for adults in Chatham County.

Ann, I used S&H Propane in Siler City recently and was very happy with them.  Their prices were the best I had found.  Nice people too!

“I am looking for a reliable and reasonably priced propane company. Mycurrent price is $3.09/gal and I think that’s high.”

Carole Hoffman, CNDP

A hearty thank you to all that voted me the best yoga teacher in  Chatham County.It has been the gift of a life-time to get to lead classes of yoga  here and spend my timewith the wonderful people of Chatham.
Cathy Holt
http://www.cathyholtyoga.com

Friend Tom, I respectfully submit that the survey on taxes was not a true survey but a “suggestive questionnaire.” Several of the questions are leading the respondents toward a specific viewpoint or ideology. I filled it out, but any conclusions you come to based upon it are not worth a hill of
beans.

gary phillips

97 box turtle road

pittsboro, north carolina

Reading the list of cuts the BOE will have to make this year is tough.  Please remember it’s tougher for them. We have all had to make changes to our lifestyles and do without, some more than others and that is not different with CCS. Jobs will be lost and that’s a hard choice these board members will make.

If you email them, be kind.  I know there are some things on this list that will be missed but there are others that won’t.  Sometimes there is a little too much “help”.  We’ve done w/o some of these things in the past and we can do w/o them again, hopefully just temporarily.

If and when we lose assistants, parents can and will step up to make copies, volunteer for lunch duty and help out in the classroom.  It’s happened before and the school community rallied.  Testing coordinators can also be replaced with some volunteers, we all did it for years before we had these positions.  The same goes for media assistants.  Students and volunteers can help shelve books and do other duties to help the Media center.

Of course that doesn’t make it easier on those who will lose their jobs, and hopefully the community can come together, like here on the Chatlist, and help these folks find employment.

CCS is the counties largest employer and they have to make cuts.  Our community needs to rally and support both the BOE in their decisions and those they will effect.

And thanks MIA, for always keeping the public informed about CCS.  Waiting for the next election to put you on the BOE!!!