Editor:

On behalf of everyone at the Shannon and Maggie June Hubbard Charitable Fund, aka All Moms Are Heroes (AMAH), I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the Monomoy Regional High School (MRHS) Class of 2025 for choosing to donate their class funds to our organization as their senior class gift.

This generous and selfless gesture is a powerful reminder of the compassion and leadership already being shown by the next generation. By giving to AMAH, the MRHS Class of 2025 is helping us support local families in the “missing middle” — those who earn too much to qualify for traditional assistance but still struggle with the high costs of childcare and early intervention services.

This gift is especially meaningful because Shannon Hubbard, in whose honor AMAH was founded, was a beloved teacher within the Monomoy Regional School District. Her passion for education, her students and her community continues to inspire our work every day. Knowing that this contribution came from students in a district she cared so deeply about makes it all the more special.

To the graduates: thank you for believing in our work and for stepping into the world not just as students, but as community champions. We’re inspired by your generosity and excited to see the impact you’ll have in the years to come.

Tim Waldron
All Moms Are Heroes

Editor:

This letter is in full support of the Pine Oaks Village IV housing proposal. While everyone says that they are in favor of affordable housing in the abstract, the minute a specific site is proposed all of the same arguments come out, including traffic, density, impact on schools and “not in keeping with the community.” These arguments are very shortsighted. Without additional affordable and attainable housing units there will be no community. 

Our businesses find it difficult to be fully staffed due to lack of housing. The town, fire department, police department, and Monomoy School District all struggle to fill funded positions. Most recently The Cape Cod Chronicle reported that we lost our natural resource director because he can’t afford to live here and the commute off cape is too difficult. It is hard to find a primary care doctor because doctors can’t afford housing here.

So let’s stop finding reasons to say no and say yes to approving Pine Oaks Village IV which will provide 242 apartments gradually in five phases over the next 10 years. The principals of this proposal, Mid Cape Church Homes, a non-profit 501(c)(3), are our neighbors and friends! 

Density is not a four-letter word. The way this community will be situated back off the road, the three-story buildings will not be overly visible. 

Yes, it probably will create a little more traffic, but that is a small price to pay for having people that we need to staff our town and businesses have places to live. We do not have a “traffic problem” in Harwich. For six to eight weeks of the summer it may take an extra five minutes to go to some places, but that is a small price to pay for taking this giant step in creating attractive and affordable housing.

The Cape, including Harwich, has a major housing crisis and I encourage everyone to welcome Mid Cape Church Homes’ Pine Oaks Village IV proposal. 

Mary Anderson
Harwich

Editor:

It is easy to imagine that it may be impossible to be kind and loving if we have never known kindness and love. If it appears that someone has been raised only with criticism and derision, how could they possibly understand compassion? If the childhood lessons were models of racism and greed, wouldn’t the adult be floundering, unable to find direction, a moral definition, a healthy relationship with truth, and an ability to learn new lessons? If only exposed to sneers, authentic smiles are impossible. To know joy and appreciation requires a maturity of the soul and a consciousness of the spirit. An arid and desolate place is at the heart of someone who has never been nourished by acceptance. Growth and enlightenment remain forever elusive if the person believes they already know everything there is to know, slamming the door to development and improvement, immersing the self in the perception of power. The result is an utterly tragic dearth of humanity, only able to fight for existence by fomenting fear, anger, hatred and violence (never ever a viable option) seeking constant approval and validation/value from any source possible. There are choices in every action — requiring an awareness of the sacred connections tying all of us together. We need each other; we need to be caring for each other. We must define ourselves with peace, openness and a willingness to learn about each other as we co-create and celebrate a better world.

Diversity is the law of the universe, a gift of glory to be treasured. Surviving and thriving are impossible without it. Indeed, DEI spells God in Latin. Just saying…

Maria C. Mazzer
Chatham

Editor:

With changing climate and weather, tick season has lengthened, along with the window for disease, on the Cape and Islands.

To prevent disease before it reaches people, scientists in Connecticut tried adding a parasite medicine to deer feed, which then went into the deer bloodstream and stopped the spread of Lyme disease. Of note, scientists later deemed the deer meat healthy. Maybe the Cape and Islands, with our science and outdoor communities, could vet and pilot this study, too?

Jack Whitacre
East Falmouth

Editor:

Cobblestone aprons and curbs, granite mail box posts, plastic fences, arbor vitae “Berlin Walls,” expanded “elderly” street signage, all trappings of urbanization, are becoming ubiquitous. And soon, should the ice cream boys have their way, we will have underground parking in Harwich. By my thought, that would be one big sour cone, a hastening of the citification in the town.

At the recent planning board meeting, Richard Waystack, in support of the overly dense Sundae School redevelopment plan, pointed out that there is already precedent for underground parking in Harwich, that being the Belmont. By my eye the Belmont garages were built at grade, then backfill was pushed up against the foundation walls. I am investigating further with the building department.

To a certain extent we all bring what we know to Cape Cod. Let's not include underground parking. We should erase that possibility. We can surely keep cars at original grade and away from the water table. And, at the same time, create a limiting effect on any proposed construction footprint.

Matt Sutphin
Harwich

Editor:

The Animal Welfare Club of Monomoy Regional High School would like to thank Jennifer Harrington, animal control officer of the Harwich Police Department, for visiting our club recently to teach us about what she does for the town of Harwich and the domestic or wild animals she saves (and sometimes, sadly, can't save). We learned so much about her love and compassion for the voiceless, and she inspired some of our students to consider a career in animal care. We also learned about how to live in harmony with our local wildlife. Thanks again, Officer Harrington!

Lisa Forte-Doyle, Beth Howe
Co-advisors, Animal Welfare Club
Monomoy Regional High School

Editor:

As a retired Navy Captain with 26 years of aviation service, I am totally disgusted with the $45 million taxpayer-funded birthday gift that draft-dodging Despicable Donald, himself worth $1.6 billion, gave himself by expanding a preplanned Army 250th anniversary parade.

Inspired by France's Bastille Day celebration and those staged by Putin and Kim Jong-Un, he was determined to one-up those parades. He claimed that the parade was to honor our military members and veterans, whom he has previously labeled as suckers and losers, even refusing to visit a French cemetery containing graves of World War I casualties, saying it was full of losers, and denying John McCain was a war hero because he was captured. In doing so, he sought to disguise the real purpose of the parade, a tribute to himself as commander-in-chief. Meanwhile, he has sent National Guardsmen and Marines to Los Angeles where they have not been requested nor are they wanted, while, through the incompetent and morally challenged Secretary of Defense Pete Hesgeth, threatened to do the same in other areas of the country. 

Leaving aside the better use of the $45 million in Harvard and NIH medical research, USAID, Voice of America, NPR and other important causes he has defunded, Trump's insistence on Saturday's grandiose parade is a dangerous indication of his authoritarian nature. The courts are doing their best, but Congress must grow a backbone and stop this man.

Ralph W. Smith
Harwich Port