Letters to the Editor

Thanks to all who answered the call

To the editor:

I am writing this to give my true, heartfelt thanks to so many of our Granite Staters. I am originally from the South, but have called New Hampshire home now for almost 16 years.

In the midst of the Hurricane Katrina devastation many lives were destroyed and many towns demolished. I have family all along the southern coast, from Texas to Florida. Four small coastal towns in Mississippi suffered significantly, Gulfport, Ocean Springs, Pass Christian and Long Beach. They have emerged out of the rubble and are on a road to recovery. I have family in Ocean Springs. My cousin is the principal of the high school there. I made a call to be sure everyone was safe and asked “How can we help you from here?”

My cousin’s response was, “We need everything and our first mission is to get our kids taken care of and back to school.”

The four towns rallied together and salvaged the Ocean Springs schools. He told me that one of the first things they needed was basic school supplies. I sent out an e-mail to all of my fellow co-workers, friends and business networking group. In less than two weeks I had 13 boxes of supplies and some personal donations, weighing in at about 40 pounds apiece, full of school supplies. My next dilemma was how to ship them. UPS in Manchester came through for us and shipped everything for free. (Thank you Bill Peck and the New Hampshire UPS team!)

I live in Hooksett and the Hooksett School District held a book drive to restock the Mississippi schools’ libraries. They collected thousands of great books and boxes of fabulous teacher supplies – all with the help of our wonderful friend Charlie from Mailbox Express, who provided the boxes. Again we were stuck with the shipping issue, but our friends at FedEx New Hampshire came through for us, shipping 35 boxes of books and teacher supplies. (Thank you Mel Finley, Steve Dalzell and the New Hampshire FedEx team!)

The world is small and the connections and open arms in New Hampshire circled together when I found out through a co-worker that New Boston, Goffstown and Dunbarton schools had come together and chosen Ocean Springs to adopt and help on their own. Goffstown High School itself raised over $2,600 in cash, and once again a great company — Con-Way Central Express — came to our rescue and took the two palettes at no charge. (Thank you Con-Way Central Express and Ernie Bullock!)

I am proud to be a part of such a great state with so many wonderful caring people.

Thank you all!

Kim Reagan
Hooksett

Let’s force AOL to let down its guard

To the editor:

To my friends with AOL addresses who aren’t hearing from me:

Some six weeks back, AOL installed a new spam protector for all users, with the unexpected outcome that messages from certain Internet providers, such as the popular Hotmail, are filtered out and never delivered, leaving no electronic trace to the intended recipient that they ever existed.

Have you been irritated because someone has failed to answer your urgent e-mail lately? Messages between family members, board members, teachers, retailers and political parties are victim to this malfunction, which has not been corrected by AOL, despite numerous approaches by Hotmail on behalf of its clients over some six weeks — an unacceptable time period in an industry that promotes itself on its instant transmission of communication.

The only effective result would be for AOL users to push the help/contact buttons on their headers and contact the service manager to request (demand) a rebate on their monthly rate until full service is restored.

Rosa Parks sat down in 1972 not because she was tired but because she was “sick and tired” of unequal treatment. She had trained for this moment for 12 years with the NAACP and the Highlander Center for Nonviolent Change in eastern Tennessee.

What brought the bus company to its knees was the courageous one-year boycott of the bus service by African-Americans and their supporters. Imagine getting to work or to grandma’s house without a car and without public transportation. Bike, hike, move closer to work, roller skate? But somehow they stuck to it.

With the bus coffers empty one year later, new policies of equal treatment were approved by its board. It was actually an economic boycott that effected this important change in civil rights, one involving great personal sacrifice by individuals and extensive collaboration and support networks.

Shall we try out our economic power on a small scale, beginning with AOL?

Linda Marsella
Joseph’s Coat PeaceCrafts
Peterborough