It seems like not too long ago that at the United Way we planned one event per year: Day of Caring. That was a great event, where we connected folks to various agencies to go out and in one big day of service help with painting walls, digging gardens, cleaning up basements, etc. Hard to ...

While a strong economy means Granite Staters are finding work, it doesn’t mean applicant skills evenly match with market demands. Many of the trades continue to find themselves with an aging workforce and a shortage of candidates with the right skills. Community colleges and industry ...

“Pat’s” story: When I was 19, I was diagnosed with depression. I understood that this was an illness and spoke very openly to my friends, family and even publicly about my diagnosis. In my 20s, I was having trouble with friendships and co-workers. I didn’t understand why, so I talked ...

Access to health care should not be a matter of luck – where you were born, whether your employer offers insurance, what health issues you encounter. For many, it is actually a matter of life and death. It is the difference between paying attention in school and being too sick to learn. It ...

I was at Walmart recently, as part of my community service, and overheard a woman asking her friend, “Where do they sell landmines. Do they still make rotisserie phones? Ah the malaprop. Tuned like a fine audiobook, the malaprop is a word used in belief that it has the meaning really ...

Education has always been expensive. Throughout the history of the United States, only affluent families were able to buy for their children a good formal education. Nevertheless, American families of modest means have been able to educate their children for generations by pooling their ...

There is growing evidence that people with serious mental illness, including depression and schizophrenia, are more likely to use cannabis or have used it for long periods of time in the past. Regular use of the drug has appeared to double the risk of developing a psychotic episode or ...

New Hampshire has a rich tradition of thinking outside the box and experimenting with new solutions, which often leads to accomplished results for our citizens and our businesses. It is one of the reasons why the Granite State is consistently given high marks when compared to other areas of the ...

As a kid growing up in Nashua, the words, “Let’s go to the movies” would always catch my attention and get me pumped up for an afternoon of fun. I grew up in a single-parent household as my Mom was a widow, so it was typically one of my sisters who were “assigned” to take me. Back in ...

Join the Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce and Southern New Hampshire Health for the 5th annual Community Health and Wellness Fair from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Feb. 2. This free, fun and informative event will take place at the Boys & Girls Club of Souhegan Valley, located at 56 Mont ...

I admit to being shocked when the November election saw the Democrats take over the New Hampshire House of Representatives, the state Senate and the Executive Council. I was shocked, because I never expected such a wholesale change when things were going so well. Now, New Hampshire’s ...

This past summer, my wife and I were blessed to visit Atlanta, Georgia. There are many great sights to see in that metropolitan city. It was our goal to see the sights referring to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We were blessed to go to his birth house where we heard stories of how he did not ...

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker Sustainability needs us all, birds and frogs. What physicist Freeman Dyson wrote in his Einstein lecture about mathematics applies to life – we tend to be either birds or frogs. Dyson: “Birds fly in the air and ...

So unsavory a character was the outlaw Jesse Diehl, the recent arrival in Nashua deemed by observers “a bold, desperate character in every particular,” that none of the police officers in his hometown of York, Pa. dared arrest him “for fear of getting killed someday.” Diehl, also ...

A few months ago, I had an interesting realization. My wife and I were pondering what life might look like when we retire. Of course, this is wishful thinking, since I’m a good decade away from that, but nevertheless sometimes it’s an interesting thought. We started looking at different ...

“As yet, the wind is an untamed, and unharnessed force; and quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made, will be the taming, and harnessing of it.” – Abraham Lincoln Is wind power now cheaper than coal? The economic weather vane is now pointing to wind and solar ...

Last night, I had one of the most unfortunate experiences of my time in Nashua. A group of vocal naysayers showed up to our library trustee meeting to share their concern for the Drag Queen Teen Time coming up Saturday. As a newly elected official, I appreciate even our most passionate ...

“The Wright brothers flew right through the smoke screen of impossibility.” – Charles Kettering As January sunshine ushers in longer days, the prospect of the New Year brings optimism! And more than any other thing, optimism depends on openness. In his article “Solutions Thinking ...

If New Hampshire’s nursing homes are to continue to be a vital safety net, the 17-cents-a-day Medicaid funding increase they received January 1, for the over-4,000 residents whose care is state-funded, is not going to sustain them. New Hampshire’s unemployment rate is at its lowest level ...

December broke ranks with fall as temperatures turned mild, plenty of sun returned, and rain and snow diminished. El Nino continued to be the reason behind the noted change from fall to our first month of winter. One could almost make the argument that December and November traded places this ...