Chester CountyPRESS
www.chestercounty.com
Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 156, No. 5
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
$1.00
INSIDE Penn Township board hears proposal
for vineyard and tasting room By Marcella Peyre-Ferry Contributing Writer Pallares Family Holdings, LLC is seeking approval to operate a vineyard and tasting room on the property at 377 and 378 Hood Lane in Penn Township. A conditional-use hearing was held Unionville defeats prior to the Jan. 19 meeting Academy Park...1B of the township’s Board of Supervisors to discuss the application. As testified by Enrique Pallares on behalf of the family business, their plan is for family members to live in the two residential
Kennett Square to be featured on Movers & Makers...3A
dwellings on the 26-acre property while converting the country store to an office and the barn to a tasting room. The tasting room would sell wine by the bottle and the glass. It would have a maximum occupancy of 49 people, which would represent 41 patrons with 8 staff members. Only Spanish-style tapas and small plates would be served – not a full restaurant menu. If approved, the operation could be open to the public as early as June of this year. The company currently is
producing wine under the label Casa Carmen as a boutique winery with their primary business location in Chestertown, Maryland. Founded in 2017, the focus is on Spanish-style or Old World-style dry wines. They produce red, rose, and white wine, as well as a Spanish-style vermouth. The township zoning ordinance limits wine sales from a tasting room to wines produced only from grapes raised on the site. The ordinance also references the need to follow regulations of the Pennsylvania Liquor
History Center to present “The Story of Chester County Hospital” By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer
County Commissioners launch America250 Celebration planning...1B
INDEX Opinion.......................5A Obituaries.......2B-3B & 5B
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Classifieds..................4B
Among the progress made by Chester County’s most prominent institutions over the past decade, Chester County Hospital may stand at the very top of that list. The hospital has grown into a 309-bed acute-care inpatient facility in West Chester, with outpatient services in Exton, West Goshen, New Garden, West Grove, Jennersville and Kennett Square. In 2013, the hospital became part of Penn Medicine, one of the world’s leading academic centers for medical education, biomedical research and patient care, and in 2020, the hospital completed the largest expansion in its history that included 15 operating room suites, a 99-bed patient tower, a new main entrance and an expanded and renovated emergency department. Yet, to acknowledge the vast and integrated network of the hospital -- medical and surgical services, home health, inpatient hospice, nursing care and occupational medicine to list just a few – is to also recognize that Chester County Hospital began 130 years ago to serve the medical needs of a growing community.
to be used in vermouth and to continue the use of the existing black walnut trees for the company’s signature black vermouth. Casa Carmen wine is produced at a shared winery facility in Baltimore. Currently, the company has partnerships with two Chester County vineyards, Stag and Thistle, and Equivine. Testimony for the applicant was completed, but the board did not render a decision at this point. The hearing will be continued Continued on page 2A
Task force aims to minimize disruptions from hospital closures
a small ten-bed dispensary located just a few hundred yards from its current location on Marshall Street in West Chester. Before its opening, people living in Chester County with lifethreatening injuries and illnesses had to travel to Philadelphia for treatment – at a time when the nation was still recovering from the Civil War and sanitary conditions were not as commonplace as they are now. “Disease travels with people and with wars, and ultimately, that fact is what ended up getting the townspeople to the point where they said, ‘We need to be
With Tower Health’s closure of Jennersville Hospital on Dec. 31, and the closure of Brandywine Hospital’s doors on Jan. 31, The Alliance for Health Equity, formerly the Brandywine Health Foundation, has announced the formation of the Health Services Leadership Group Task Force. The group, made up of leaders representing nearly 20 local and county organizations, will develop strategies to minimize disruption of healthcare services and rebuild a strong and equitable healthcare system in the region. “We understand the tremendously negative impact the hospital closures will have on the communities that relied upon them,” said Vanessa Briggs, president and CEO of The Alliance for Health Equity. “Our goals in bringing together this group are to minimize the disruption of healthcare services, to provide information to the residents we serve about alternative healthcare services, and beyond that, to rebuild a strong and equitable healthcare ecosystem.” “If ever there was a time to come together to galvanize action and build a strategic partnership with county and local government as well as many other community partners, the time is now, given the gravity of the situation and the abandonment of critical healthcare services,” Briggs added. The task force is working in two groups – advocacy and coordinated health services – to prioritize and communicate short term healthcare needs, and to focus on longer-term methods to rebuild a stronger healthcare system – one that is not as vulnerable to the impact of hospital closures and that assesses and addresses gaps in healthcare and health-related services. The advocacy work group’s focus is on community needs and education, with priorities of conducting a community needs assessment to capture the concerns and healthcare needs of residents related to the hospital closures, while also identifying trusted community influencers to support community surveys and educational activities. The coordinated health services work group’s
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The Chester County History Center will present “The Story of the Chester County Hospital,” an online event beginning at 7 p.m. on Feb. 8. It is a rich history, imagined into being by both visionaries and benefactors and on Feb. 8, that story will be told. Sponsored by The Haverford Trust Company, the Chester County History Center will present “The Story of the Chester County Hospital,” an hour-long online presentation beginning at 7 p.m. and hosted by Andy Gordon, director of business development at Chester County Hospital. After an impassioned appeal from several key local physicians including Jacob Price, Isaac Macy and Thomas Dunn, Chester County Hospital first opened its doors in 1893 as
Control Board. “Most wineries function by growing some grapes but also buying some grapes from other vineyards,” Pallares said. “My view is that this particular potion of the ordinance is outdated and not up to what the industry standards are.” The plan for the property is to plant two acres of vines the first year with one to three additional acres the next year. It takes three years for vines to produce grapes. There is also a plan to plant a three-quarteracre garden of botanicals
A poet’s voice resonates from the depths of the pandemic Marie-Louise Meyers recently published her fourth book, “Isolation and Revelation,” a book of poetry that offers an honest and thoughtful response to the pandemic and its impact on the world around her By Steven Hoffman Staff Writer
ing, of course. Here’s how she began “The Tsunami,” which is included In her new book of poetry, in the chapter called Rude “Isolation and Revelation,” Awakening: Marie-Louise Meyers offers an honest and thoughtful response It came like a giant tidal wave to the pandemic and all its that overwhelms and inundates unwanted consequences. everything in its wake with a This is her fourth book, and silent deadly force Meyers started working on it turning day into strangulated at the onset of the pandemic. flight She can vividly recall how she where nothing could be © 2007 The Chester County Press felt in those first days when the counted on to turn out right. pandemic gripped the U.S. “I felt like the air had a Meyers said that she wrote kind of deadness to it,” she the poems in “Isolation and explained. “I felt like our world Revelation” day by day as she changed overnight.” reflected on the events and She wasn’t alone in that feel- reacted to the hope and the fear
that we all felt as the pandemic stretched out, week after week, month after month, and surge after surge. She explained the quest for normalcy this way: In between it afforded doldrums with facts and figures gleaned, ready to return to Normalcy when it crashed as numbers of cases spiked once again and the spread was unprecedented with a new kind of unfathomable dread.
words also helped her deal with the circumstances that she was facing. Even though this is a book of poetry, Meyers is a natural storyteller, and she utilized those skills to capture the daily happenings of the pandemic. She wanted others to find comfort in her words, just as she was taking comfort by writing them. “I had a mission to extract some meaning from the events that occurred,” she said. She wrote:
“It was the last resort when The act of writing provid- everything we counted on ed her comfort, and putting fell apart even the People’s her thoughts and feelings into House came tumbling down
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In her new book of poetry, “Isolation and Revelation,” Marie-Louise Meyers offers an honest and thoughtful response to the pandemic and all its unwanted consequences.
with a Let Down, and for awhile, there was Mob Rule. We needed the Earth to Continued on page 3A