Sometimes a simple gesture of kindness can have a ripple effect in our community.

As Meals on Wheels driver, I was waiting at the light at Franklin and Boundary and had a chance to admire the lovely rose garden in front of the house to my right. I noticed the owner was out trimming her bushes and smiled at her.

She looked up and smiled back and quickly cut a beautiful white rose and hurried to my car and gave the rose to me. What a lovely spontaneous gift! I thanked her and told her I was a Meals on Wheels driver and would pass it along to one of my recipients.

As I drove my route, I thought about one of my recipients who had a significant health problem and was awaiting the result of an evaluation that could cause her to undergo a severe medical procedure. I decided she should get the rose. I left the rose, along with her hot lunch, with her caregiver. It gave me great pleasure to know that when she returned from seeing her doctor she would have a hot lunch and a beautiful flower and know that her Meals on Wheels friends were thinking of her. The simple, generous, spontaneous gift of a rose rippled through the community and touched several lives.

Celia Sandford

Chapel Hill Carrboro Meals on Wheels

Editor’s note: Find out how you can help Meals on Wheels at 919-942-2948 or www.chcmow.org/

Thanks, but no thanks

Thank you to Kelly Alexander (CHN, May 2, bit.ly/JWcscJ) and other parents for sharing their views on the proposed dual language recommendations the school board will consider later this month.

Last year we entered our rising kindergartener in Frank Porter Graham’s dual language lottery. We wanted her to have the multicultural, multilingual experience not afforded to us in school, and believed that programs designed to close achievement gaps fit the values we want to instill in our children. We were disappointed to be wait-listed.

If the proposed recommendations are approved, our daughter would have another chance to participate in dual language when a second classroom is added. And yet we prefer board members vote against the proposal.

Why? We love our neighborhood school, just the way it is. FPG is a multicultural, nurturing educational environment where all children can thrive. The 19 children in our daughter’s classroom speak many languages, including English, Karen, Spanish and Burmese, and have families who hail from at least four continents. The teaching assistant is trilingual, and can therefore provide extra support to children and families with limited English proficiency. And the differentiated educational techniques employed by the teacher have transformed a group of children who could not easily communicate with each other at the start of the year, into a classroom community full of readers, math enthusiasts, and friends. And these are just examples from one classroom in one FPG grade!

A dual language magnet school is a good idea, but not at the expense of a neighborhood school with an established history of welcoming and serving diverse populations. We hope the school board will instead consider starting from scratch, and building elementary school No. 11 or No. 12 as a dual language magnet.

Shelley Golden and Tom Bodenheimer

Carrboro

FPG parents

You’ve all made a life-changing event for about 400 students in Frank Porter Graham and if FPG becomes a dual language school 400 people will be heart broken and when they have some one asks to them in 20 years did you have a great childhood they won’t say I had a great one they will think of this. Because you have decided just remember you have already scarred 400 kids for life so think of what you’ve done. (done when they decide)."

John Duncan, 3rd grader

Frank Porter Graham Elementary School

Connecting kids

A new website, www.chcyouth.org intended to help connect children and youth between five and 20 years old in the Chapel Hill and Carrboro communities with nonprofit organizations serving youth launched on May 1. The website is part of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Youth Services Initiative, an effort supported by a group of local philanthropic organizations and individuals invested in the well-being of Chapel Hill and Carrboro children and youth.

The initiative’s focus is to ensure that all young people in Chapel Hill and Carrboro have access to programs and activities that would contribute to their growth and development into happy and productive citizens. This website is intended to serve as a resource for all community members – the youth and those working with youth-seeking opportunities and services that will help the youngest members of the Chapel Hill and Carrboro communities reach their greatest potential. If you are aware of an organization that should be included in this initiative or have questions or comments, please contact me at mthimmel@ncgrantmakers.org .

Tracey G. Himmel

Chapel Hill-Carrboro Youth Services Initiative

Cruel retribution

I think everyone living here in the Southern Part of Heaven is beyond words by now. As this trial progresses and more testimony is heard, the general feeling I hear is that this continuing soap opera belongs on the “Jersey Shore” or Peyton Place or anywhere else but here in NC.

The star witnesses for the prosecution seem as dubious and as of questionable character as the defendant. I probably would have more sympathy or respect for the Youngs if their motives for exposing the “Bunny Money” trail were pure or even slightly above board. Sadly I think they were driven by greed, power and the age-old need to cover their own (expletive).

At one time I supported John Edwards for president, and I find not many people will admit to that now. While it is not clear in my mind as to his guilt of any felony crime for the vast sums of money that went through his hands, I think the time has come to cease attacking this man and let him move on with his life.

Yes his actions were atrocious, but he and his family have suffered enough. The continuing attack on any man or woman is no longer justice – it reeks of cruel retribution.

We all will need to live with our choices and actions through our lives. I think John Edwards’ greatest task now will be finding a way to forgive himself. And I honestly hope he can.

William Derey

Carrboro

Two bad outcomes

The prospect of war with Iran is frightening. So is the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran.

That’s why I was so encouraged that the United States was among the world powers taking part in diplomatic talks with Iran on April 13 and 14.

Diplomacy is single most effective way to avert those two bad outcomes.

Patricia Ray

Chapel Hill