Cheers and Jeers
Jeers to President Donald Trump and the people who cheered his mocking retelling of the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford at a rally this week. The controversy surrounding Brett Kavanaugh, Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee, has divided many in the country. Our president’s snide and taunting reiteration of Ford’s testimony at a Mississippi rally Tuesday was abhorrent. If you want to know what stops people from coming forward to report sexual assault, look no further than the behavior of our president and the people who cheered him as he derided her on a public stage. Whether you believe Blasey Ford or Kavanaugh is irrelevant to this. Our scorn is directed toward the tone-deaf manner in which Trump questioned her allegations. That our nation’s leader would mock claims of sexual assault certainly has a chilling effect on those who may be struggling in silence about whether to come forward.
Cheers to the Connellsville Area School Board for switching up the school calendar so that Nov. 6 will be an Act 80 day for students. Voters in one of Bullskin Township precincts use the township’s elementary school as a polling place. Some have expressed concerns that voters coming in and out of the school on election days present a potential safety issue for students. When an alternative polling place couldn’t be found, the school board took action. We hope the Fayette County Election Bureau and school board will keep looking for a permanent solution to abate those concerns and are able to find one before the May primary election.
Cheers to the good works of the Western Pennsylvania Diaper Bank, whose founders are striving to help out moms in need of their babies’ most basic necessity. Cathy Battle, the bank’s director, said an average infant or toddler requires at least 50 diaper changes a week for their first three years. Sadly, one in every three mothers struggles financially to accommodate that. Few programs exist to help, so Battle and her husband are trying to fill the need with collection drives. They already distribute in Westmoreland County and are hoping to move into Fayette soon.
Cheers to the Fayette Chamber of Commerce for continuing to support the needs of the county’s food bank by hosting a collection drive tomorrow. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the grocery entrance of the Uniontown Walmart, volunteers will collect nonperishable food items and monetary donations for the food bank. The money is used to buy turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Last year’s drive netted 300 turkeys and over 1,000 pounds of nonperishable goods. The food bank distributes about 1.8 tons of food to more than 10,000 county residents annually.
Cheers to Uniontown police Officer Jennifer Field, who was honored this week for her efforts in talking down a woman who was threatening to jump from a Fayette County bridge in August. Field was able to use her training to communicate with the troubled woman, convincing her to get off a railing and seek help. Our police are asked to respond to the most difficult, potentially dangerous and stressful situations there are. It’s what they do daily, often with no thanks. Taking time to recognize one of our community’s officers for a life-saving deed was the appropriate thing to do.