Letters to the Editor

Dear editor, The Arena VFW held their raffle that was scheduled in May which, due to Covid-19, was postponed until December 12 at the monthly steak feed. The 65 inch flat screen TV was won by Gail Forseth and the rifle was won by Richard Amble.  Shirley Anding won the soldier silhouette. We would like to thank everyone who bought tickets and hope when we return to normal we will be able to get back to having another raffle. Due to 25 percent capacity our January steak feed will be cancelled.  We apologize for any inconvenience this might have.  We plan on resuming our month steak feed February 12, 2021. Stay safe and together we will get through this. Thank you, Arena VFW Post 9336   Dear editor, Our fifth growing season has ended. The River Valley Area Community Gardens, Inc., would like to thank you for your support of our community garden.  COVID-19 threw a wrench into some of our plans but it didn’t stop the community from gardening. In 2020, the gardens nearly doubled as we added 25 plots to accommodate our growth from 14 family units to 26 family units including 3 student gardeners.  We thank you for your support of our brat frys this fall as we raised money for our 2021 expenses which include water and irrigation system supplies, fertilizer, marsh hay, insurance, tiller, insecticides and other gardening needs.    For monetary donations, we thank Peoples Community Bank, Cardinal Glass, and the St. John’s Knights of Columbus. For help with our brat frys and garden projects, we thank Prem Meats, Hometown Supermarket, Doerre Hardware, Office Mart, Spring Printing, The Weekly Home News, Tri-County Building Supply, and all the area businesses that allow us to put posters advertising the Gardens in their windows.  For an indoor meeting space, we thank Spring Green Community Church. We also thank the Spring Green Farmer’s Market for allowing us to have a table for distributing registration information. We thank Wendy and Vicky in the village office, Greg and the Spring Green public works department, and the village board for their help and support. We thank Jim Sprecher for tilling the new plots and the loan of equipment. We thank Jerome Sprecher for the spring and fall tilling of our plots.    We thank Miracles on Hoof / CR Therapy Center for compost and Ron Miller for marsh hay.  We thank our volunteers, those non community gardeners who have helped us harvest food pantry produce and work on our gardening projects throughout the gardening season. We thank those of you who have taken time to walk through our Gardens and expressed your appreciation for all the work our gardeners have done in their plots.  This year we donated a total of 740 pounds of produce to the Spring Green Community Food Pantry which serves families in the River Valley area.  We also delivered veggies to shut-ins who could not drive by our donation kiosk at the garden to pick up extra produce.  Although the gardens look bleak and lonely as they rest for the next season on this winter day, we are looking forward to spring and seeing you all again at the Gardens located in the 900 block of North Westmor behind Ring Brothers Classic Auto. We are currently making plans for the 2021 season and taking registrations for garden plot rentals.  Again this year we are offering a discount to people gardening with us for the first time.  Also we have free garden plots available for low income, unemployed or needy families.  We have a Student Gardening program that provides free plots for students.  Mentors are available for students and new or inexperienced gardeners.  We have added more plots to accommodate more Gardeners.  We are also working on an Enabling Garden to demonstrate ways people who have limited mobility may participate in gardening. To get more information or registration forms to garden with us, please check our Facebook page or visit our website at rvacg.org or email us at info@rvacg.org   Rose Ellen Schneider, on behalf of the Board of Directors of the River Valley Area Community Gardens Spring Green