State Police at Honesdale need the public’s assistance in identifying two actors that stole a woman’s credit cards and money after she lost her purse in the Honesdale Walmart on January 4th, 2018. Several purchases were made on the same day by the actors in the Dickson City Walmart and the Carbondale McDonald’s in Lackawanna County, and the Honesdale Sunoco in Wayne County.

The suspects were captured on surveillance cameras in the Dickson City Walmart, entering the store on electric carts

The suspects’ vehicle appears to be a Subaru station wagon.

If anyone has information on either of the two suspects, they are asked to contact PSP Honesdale, at 570-253-7126.

Considering that it was just the new year, can I ask you something? What is your new year’s resolution? Was it to eat healthier? Well if it was, then you are in luck! I am Courtney Marvin, a Dairy Maid of Susquehanna County, and I am going to tell you the benefits of adding nutritional dairy products to your diet.

Courtney Marvin, Susquehanna County Dairy Maid

Let’s begin with the concept of what makes a dairy product hold such great value. Dairy products, in general, contain nine essential nutrients which include calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin B12, riboflavin, and niacin. With the help of these nutrients, dairy products play an active role in maintaining MOO-tastic health. Dairy products aid in the growth and strengthening process of bones, muscles, and teeth. Plus, dairy products help in making one’s skin healthy, clear, and glow.

On another note, the three most important dairy products are milk, yogurt, and cheese. It is important to include three servings of these dairy products every single day in your diet. Whether you are working on gaining muscle or losing weight, dairy products do not come in one shape, size, or form. Chocolate milk is a great source of protein as it contains eight grams of protein and a double count of carbohydrates. For athletes and gym goers, it is so important to refuel with chocolate milk since it contains a high-water content which replaces fluids lost as sweat, therefore preventing dehydration and replenishing muscles.

Likewise, dairy products do not have to contain a great number of calories or fat. One can choose from low-fat or skim dairy products such as low-fat yogurt and cheese. Plus, one can choose from 1% or 2% milk and so on. Either way, what do you say? Will you include dairy products as a key factor in your diet during this upcoming year? I know one thing and that is, I sure will!

Reggie

Meet Reggie, a darling orange tabby who is a gentle cuddle bug seeking out affection wherever he can find it. If possible, he would spend his day lounging in your arms, grateful to be loved. Oh did we mention that he chirps?

Yes, that's right we said "chirps". Where most cats have the usual meow, our 1year old handsome boy makes a chirping sound almost like a bird singing. So if you are looking for the perfect feline companion with a very distinctive melodic purr, look no further than the adorable, adoptable Reggie who will surely be a welcome addition to any home.

So far it’s been a very cold Winter which makes it hard for us to keep our shelter warm for all our animals. If you can’t adopt, please consider donating to help us with our heating expenses. Every dollar makes a difference.

The gym at the Lackawanna Trail Elementary Center last November was a wave of red, white and blue as the students, faculty, staff and visitors arrived for the special Veterans Day Program.  This was the fourteenth year of the program, which was initiated by Bonnie Gregory who was principal at the time.  Early on there were only an average of 3 to 4 veterans who attended.  At that time the celebration was on Veterans Day, November 11th and as it turned out that was the busiest day for the veterans who wanted to attend many activities in their honor such as breakfasts, lunches or other local social activities.   After a few years, it was decided to move the program to the day prior to Veterans Day at which time the numbers grew significantly, now averaging twenty-seven each year.

Gail Franko, elementary teacher, and Jane Pardue, retired teacher, worked year round collecting photos and making updates to the program.  They try to add a new twist each year.  Early on they relied on guest speakers; however, over time they realized they didn’t need to search far to bring the real lesson of Veterans Day to the students.  The answer was right in front of them.  It turns out that the best lesson was to make the program personal to everyone at the school.

Twenty-four veterans attended the November, 2017 impressive program, tribute and recognition for Veteran’s Day at the Lackawanna Trail Elementary Center organized by teacher Gail Franko which involved the entire student body.

Pictured (l-r) are: seated - Darius Reynolds, Traves Darmock, Benjamin Carter, Jessica Carter, Craig Trunzo, Joseph Strauch, Tim Aten, Robert Clarke, Arthur Haus, Henry Fassett, George Yarns, Donald Antoine; standing - Elizabeth Reynolds, Robert James, Gary Shaw, Jerome Kelly, Scott Laird, Joseph Gilroy, Sal Bellanca, Robert O'Boyle, Frank Brown, George Brown, James Gray, Fred Lapple.

Their unique approach is through a combination of staff and administration sharing their personal connections to the military with the photos of their mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who are serving or who have served in the military in a power point presentation. For 2017, the link began by first recognizing the thirty-one students whose parents are serving or who have served in the military.  The student body applauded the important choice their parents have made to serve their country and allowed these students to stand and be honored by their peers, teachers and veterans.

The students were then asked to bring in a photo of an important veteran in their life, and during the staffs’ family photos being shared in the power point to the song, “I’m Proud to be an American,” the students waved their photos in the air.  The feeling in the auditorium along with the pride in their faces was priceless.  At that moment everyone in the room was connected and the student body understood.

In addition, the students adopted the more than 2 dozen veterans each year to write to, draw photos for, color pages or even write poems.  The students’ work is put together and sent in a package to each of the veterans just in time for Thanksgiving.  The students get so excited when they hear their veteran’s name announced as the Heroes for Today and get to see them in person!

The program ends by thanking the Veterans one last time to the song, “Thank You Soldiers.”  The students practice in their homerooms for weeks so that they can stand and sing loudly and strongly to “their veterans!”  It is the perfect ending to the program.

After the program the veterans ask, “What day and time next year?  We can’t wait to come back.”  The veterans are so happy that the students are in school on this day and are being educated on the importance of Veterans Day in a memorably personal way.  A special thank you goes out to Gail Franko for planning and organizing this meaningful program.

United Way of Susquehanna County in partnership with United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne County again this year will be offering the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program (VITA) to residents of Susquehanna County to prepare local, state and federal income tax returns for free. There are no hidden fees or charges – this is a completely free service designed to help people secure all the refunds and credits for which they are eligible.

Our VITA volunteers will prepare state, local and federal tax returns for households with income during 2017 of $54,000 or less. Wage earners and non-wage earners are eligible. Some clients may qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) of up to $6,318. You must meet the IRS criteria to be eligible to participate

Taxes are prepared by volunteers – all of whom have been trained and certified by the IRS. The VITA program is supervised by a CPA.

The program will be offered on Tuesday, March 13, 2018   from 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 69 Pratt St., New Milford, PA. Allow 30 minutes for tax preparation. Space is limited. No walk-ins accepted. To make an appointment, please call 2-1-1 or 1-888-829-1341.

The United Way also offers help for those who are comfortable preparing their own taxes online. Through MyFreeTaxes, powered by H&R Block, anyone with a household income in 2017 of $64,000 can visit this website and utilize this software for free.

Looking for a speaker at your next meeting? Then you can count of your local Penn State Master Gardeners to offer their services at your meetings to deliver researched-based programs in consumer horticulture and environmental stewardship.

The Susquehanna County Master Gardeners developed an extensive Speaker’s Bureau which has nearly 30 programs to choose from, each ranging from half hour to hour session. Topics include: Seed Starting, Saving Seeds, Winter Sowing, Make Your Own Seed Tapes, Reuse in the Garden, Pollinators, What is a Master Gardener, Living Fences, Fruit Trees for the Home Orchard, Poison Prevention, Growing Garlic, Good Bugs/Bad Bugs, Growing Herbs, Butterflies,  Houseplants, Growing Orchids, Mason Bee Lodge 101, PA Invasive Plants, Creating A Hummingbird Garden, Queen for a Day (Lily), Lasagna Gardening, Irrigation and Critter Control, Composting, Intensive/Raised Bed Gardening, Root Cellar & Alternative Storage and Forcing Bulbs. Additional programs are being developed each year. With enough advance notice we can also take requests for new programing!  Now is the time to book these wonderful, educational gardening programs for your meetings! Customary fee is $25.00 per half hour.

Currently there are 41 Master Gardeners in Susquehanna County and we are in the process of training 6 additional volunteers this year.  Master Gardeners are local volunteers who are trained by Penn State Extension and it turn, volunteer their time to teach the community horticulture skills by hosting educational programs, answering gardening questions, establishing and maintaining educational gardens and much more.

For more information contact the Penn State Master Gardener program in Susquehanna County at susquehannamg@psu.edu or call on the Susquehanna Master Gardener Hotline: 570-666-9033.

Farm Women United (FWU), a grass-roots association organized by farm women who are fed up with decades of being ignored and silenced by the powerful global, corporate politico-industry “special interests” currently controlling this nation’s agriculture, has kicked off its 2018  “Campaign to Reform US Farm and Food Policies” projects.

Recognizing that farm women bear the brunt of the stress related to trying to pay bills and provide for their families with farm income that is woefully insufficient to allow farmers to live with dignity, FWU tackles multiple aspects of the ongoing crisis engulfing rural America that matter most to farm women. Working alongside their families in the fields and in the barns and often handling the farm accounts, farm women understand how hard farmers work physically, while at the same time they are keenly aware of the severe economic injustices being perpetrated against farmers, whose voices are still being ignored, as the great American rural depression worsens. Still pressured to become ever more “efficient,” farmers are disappearing at an alarming, accelerated rate because they are coerced by government design to market their farm products below what they cost to produce on the farm, a situation that always ends with the farmers’ demise.

FWU demands that legislators, at the local, state, and federal levels, work for more effective government policies  to support a family farm system of agriculture that promotes healthy rural communities and guarantees our nation’s food security, so that consumers can access an abundant supply of nourishing, fresh, local food. FWU supports policies that put consumers and family farmers first, ahead of the global, corporate, “off-farm” business interests that have already established a food production system where food travels an average of 1500 miles before it reaches consumers.

A major priority for the FWU 2018  “Campaign to Reform US Farm and Food Policies” will be to advocate for federal dairy policy changes on behalf of dairy farmers in the upcoming 2018 Farm Bill, with support for establishing dairy farmers' "cost of production" in the federal minimum  milk pricing formula; eliminating the approximately $2 per hundredweight "make allowance" being withdrawn from farmers' milk checks to pay dairy processors' manufacturing costs; reforming the Capper-Volstead dairy co-operatives, where market consolidation has led to widespread domination and intimidation of farmers in a national milk marketing system that is showing all the signs of coercion and intimidation that are present when monopoly and monopsony economic conditions prevail; and allowing whole milk to be offered to children in the federal school lunch program. FWU members will insist that farmers themselves be heard at listening sessions surrounding the 2018 Farm Bill to allow farmers to speak for themselves, not the hand-picked "establishment" talking heads who have advanced the global "Industry" agenda that has eliminated over 90% of this nation's family dairy farmers since it became the policy of the land . FWU will also be examining the voting records of elected officials, including members of Congress and the House and Senate Ag Committees, grading the legislators on the farm and food policies they support, releasing their findings to the public. “Years ago, many farm and dairy organizations published the voting records of legislators to keep farmers informed about the policies elected officials were supporting that affected farmers. This will now be a top priority for FWU, because too many farmers do not know what legislators are up to in Washington and in the state capitals. Elected officials are not being held accountable for passing the bad legislation behind these failed agricultural policies, and that is going to change, ” said FWU founding board member Lou Ann Parish, dairy farmer, from Adams, NY.

FWU is also pleased to be kicking off a resurrection of the “Green Ribbon for Family Farms” Campaign, where a green ribbon is worn on the outside of clothing, over the heart, to show support for family farms.

Farm Women United welcomes support and involvement from farm women across the United States, in all commodities, for both current and upcoming projects. "We must act now. We can no longer be silent. Our nation's food sovereignty depends on changing the current agricultural policies that have stripped self-determination from our farmers and consumers. A nation that cannot feed itself is not free," said FWU Vice-President Donna Hall, a retired dairy farmer and current grain and hay farmer, from Muncy, PA.

“Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” James 5:4

For more information, or to join FWU, please check out our website www.farmwomenunited.org and check us out on Facebook.

Tina Carlin, Secretary/FWU Correspondence Liaison
Farm Women United
P.O. Box 113
Laceyville, PA 18623

Do you have a homeschool group or day care group that would like to take part in the Penn State Poison Prevention program taught by your local Master Gardeners?

Every year in the United States, there are over 2 million calls to poison centers concerning suspected poisonings or poison substances.  As part of National Poison Prevention Week, the Master Gardeners across the state visit first grade classrooms to discuss the dangers of potentially poisonous products and chemicals, and to outline preventative steps people can take to ensure their safety and that of their loved ones. Presentations must be scheduled now with your local Master Gardener who will be delivering the program in February and March.

The interactive presentation focuses on pests and their control by using Integrated Pest Management practices and encouraging the use of least toxic control choices first. Most families keep chemical cleaning products in the home to control or kill bacteria and fungus. Additional products found in the home that  are potentially harmful may include fuel products for mowers and trimmers, lamps and lawn torch lights, and grills; and various pesticide products for insect and weed control. Improper storage of these toxic products is often the cause of many accidental poisonings to children.

During the one 20 to 30 minute presentation given by trained Master Gardeners, children learn about safe practices including identifying signal words on the label that indicates that the product is potentially poisonous, proper storage locations, and the importance of using the Mr. Yuk symbol to alert everyone in the home of dangerous products. A major focus of the lesson is learning, and teaching younger siblings, relatives, and friends, about using Mr. Yuk to warn of danger and help keep everyone safe.

Locally, last year 358 first grade students in Susquehanna County took part in the Poison Prevention program at 7 area schools. Last year with the help and support of Master Gardeners the Poison Prevention program reached 12,345 first grade students in 187 different schools statewide.

If your group is interested in taking part in this fun and educational program contact the Penn State Master Gardener program in Susquehanna County today at susquehannamg@psu.edu or call Penn State Extension Susquehanna Master Gardener Hotline at 570-666-9003.