Thumbs up to all of the grandparents who participated in Biddeford Primary School’s event in honor of National Grandparents Day. In honor of the Sept. 8 holiday, grandparents were invited to visit their grandchildren’s classrooms and partake in some of their regular school day activities. In addition, grandparents took part in an assembly during which a slideshow of the students and their grandparents was shown, poems were read, and a song was sung by all of the first-, second- and third-grade students about how special their grandparents are to them. It’s heartening to see this event get so much support, with more than 320 grandparents attending for the 550 students at the school. Some grandparents even “adopted” another grandchild for the day. This was the first year it was a school-wide event, and we hope it’s an annual tradition for families in Biddeford.
C Thumbs up to York County government for its positive audit report. RHR Smith & Company of Buxton, the auditor, reported that the county government ended the 2012 calendar year with a “healthy” fund balance. The county has come a long way from several years ago when it was having major financial difficulties. It’s also good to see County Manager Greg Zinser pushing for more planning for capital improvements and retirement costs. While the county may be “healthy” financially, it only has about 60 days of operating funds in the unassigned fund balance, which Zinser pointed out is “not sufficient for unseen things.” While municipalities and counties have been flat-funding or making minimal increases to their budgets for the last several years, planning needs to take place to ensure infrastructure is properly maintained and not allowed to fall into disrepair. Proper planning and budgeting for capital projects over time will lead to fewer costs when work needs to be done and keep the budget from being hit all at once.
C Thumbs up to all of the participants of last weekend’s 19th annual Strut Your Mutt event in Kennebunk, which benefits the Animal Welfare Society. More than 350 participants and their dogs were projected to take part, raising money for the Sadie Fund, which provides about $150,000 of medical care for aged, homeless or sick animals each year. It’s also a great event to get people and their pets outdoors, enjoying the fall weather and exercising in a fun way.
C Thumbs up to the teenagers at Biddeford High School ”“ and recent graduates ”“ who are making a difference as a part of Project Aware. The group focuses on empowering teens and bringing awareness to issues with which they struggle, such as substance abuse, bullying, sex, depression and academic stress. The group is currently working on a 30-minute film that will deal with substance abuse, bullying, teen pregnancy and stress. In the past, Project Aware participants have created 10 films and 20 public service announcements. Keep up the good work!
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Thumbnails is a Monday feature of the Journal Tribune’s opinion pages. If you want to respond, feel free to write to the Readers’ Forum via email at jtcommunity@journaltribune.com or by dropping your letter off at our Biddeford office.
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