We're finally at the end of 2020, a year that has been challenging at best. Despite a pandemic and all of the complications that came with it, the Helping Neighbors Campaign hasn't merely met its goal to raise $65,000 for hungry individuals and families on Cape Cod. It sailed on past it and raised an incredible $85,010 and still counting. With so many in our community experiencing job loss, housing insecurity ...

HARWICH — Looking back to 2019 and the tornado that cut through Harwich Center that July, the sense was abnormal events couldn’t get much more bizarre. That was quickly set aside in 2020 when the coronavirus made its way to our shoreline, disrupting every aspect of normal life. In early March, the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on Cape Cod. By March 10 the pandemic was taking hold across the state and Go...

HARWICH — Restaurants are struggling to make ends meet. With the latest announcement from Gov. Charlie Baker limiting seating capacity to 25 percent, there seem to be two decisions being made: shut down for the winter or recreate yourself. How does a restaurant recreate itself in winter on Cape Cod.? One answer is igloos. If anyone has driven by Jake Rooney’s restaurant on the curve on Route 28 separating H...

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has been difficult for everyone, but for those who rely on The Family Pantry for access to nourishing food for themselves and their families, things have been especially hard. Job loss, housing insecurity and juggling bringing home a paycheck with helping school-age children to navigate virtual classrooms have made a tough time even tougher. Now, with diagnosed cases of the virus ac...

HARWICH — Town officials are weighing the cost and impact of the FY22 capital plan, which contains approximately $20 million in requests and is driven by wastewater projects for which decisions have yet to be fully vetted. The capital plan had been carrying $8.4 million in wastewater funding FY22, representing the projected cost of a third contract for sewer construction to complete the system installation in ...

Hot Job Market For Dental And Veterinary Assistants PLEASANT LAKE — Whether it’s because of the pandemic or just because of the Cape’s unique economy, some people are looking to hit the reset button on their careers, moving from one type of job to an entirely different line of work. T he Community School at Cape Cod Tech is helping to meet that need, offering adult education training in a vari...

HARWICH – The Harwich Conservation Trust (HCT) recently opened the walking trails at the Pleasant Bay Woodlands, nearly 50 rolling acres in East Harwich. For many years, HCT had been watching this top priority property, which in 2013 was the largest undeveloped tract in the entire 21,000-acre Pleasant Bay Watershed shared by Harwich, Chatham, Orleans, and Brewster. HCT led the $3.6 million effort to save ...

HARWICH — The Harwich Fund has provided a $4,300 grant to the Harwich Children’s Fund and a $535 grant to The Children’s Center. The focus of The Harwich Fund of The Cape Cod Foundation is to help non-profit agencies which serve youth, families and seniors in the Harwich community, because so many people and businesses have been adversely impacted by the pandemic, said Brian Scheld, chair of the fund’s advisor...

It takes a village to raise a child, as the saying goes. But what does it take to feed a village? Or to feed those in need in all the villages of Cape Cod, for that matter? It takes another kind of village, as it turns out – one filled with volunteers. Dozens and dozens of volunteers give their time, energy, ideas, talent and good old fashioned hard work every week to help the Family Pantry do its important wo...

A recent uptick of coronavirus cases throughout Massachusetts and specifically on Cape Cod has led local public libraries to cut back on services for the foreseeable future. Brooks Free Library in Harwich, Eldredge Public Library in Chatham and Snow Library in Orleans all recently decided to halt in-person browsing and begin offering only curbside services. “It was in the interest of community safety, both for...

HARWICH — The board of health is putting the finishing touches on a fertilizer and nutrient control regulation and will hold a public hearing in January before implementing the measure. The town’s comprehensive wastewater management plan calls for fertilizer and nutrient control regulations a way of reducing the amount of nitrogen entering watersheds and eventually reaching and adversely impacting the marine e...

COA Launches COVID Storytelling Project HARWICH — The last nine months have left all of us – but particularly seniors – feeling socially isolated. Through its new COVID Storytelling Project, the Harwich Council on Aging is encouraging the town’s over-60 residents to share their experience of the pandemic in words or pictures . “We’re really looking for anything: journal entries, poems, short st...