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Chester CountyPRESS
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Covering Avon Grove, Chadds Ford, Kennett Square, Oxford, & Unionville Areas
Volume 153, No. 43
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
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‘A wave of compassion and generosity’
Community responds to Kennett Area Food Cupboard fire By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer On Oct. 13 at about 4 a.m., crews from the Kennett Fire Company No. 1 and the Avondale Fire Company rushed to the Kennett Area Community Service (KACS) warehouse on West Cedar Street in Kennett Square, and quickly extinguished an electrical fire that had destroyed about half of the food at the Kennett Area Food Cupboard. On Oct. 15, Beth Erisman, KACS’ social media coordinator, posted a notice on the organization’s Facebook page that detailed the extent of the damage from the fire, and appealed to the community to help.
“Last month, we served 1,124 people, and those people are counting on us and YOU,” the post read. “We are asking the community to come together and go above and beyond their usual generosity to help us create a stopgap until we are up and running again.” The post called on the community to contribute $25 Giant gift cards (to allow people to get the basics like bread, milk and eggs), as well as rice, beans, cereal, sugar, flour, pasta, peanut butter, jelly and canned goods. As of Oct. 17, the post had been read by 61,591 people and had been shared 918 times. All week long, church groups, civic organizations, youth soccer clubs
and Little League teams have made donations, the volume of which has gotten to the point where volunteers had nearly completed loading two POD moving and storage trucks worth of food that will eventually be stocked on the warehouse shelves. KACS board member Lynn Majarian said that the St. Michael Lutheran Church in Unionville holds a community bible study every Tuesday morning. When word of the fire reached those in attendance, the group donated $1,200 to the Cupboard. The compassion has extended to other entities. Bike Kennett is asking all riders participating at the Continued on Page 2A
Photo by Richard L. Gaw
Will Majarian, a volunteer for the Kennett Area Food Cupboard, helps stack boxes of food that have been donated by the public since a fire occurred at the Cupboard last Sunday morning.
Six seats on Kennett School Board to be decided on Election Day Garcia withdraws from Kennett School Board race, leaving three people to vie for two seats in Region A
West Chester & Chadds Ford Life Magazine
By Chris Barber Correspondent
Plenty of people put out Halloween decorations. But then there are the Cookes, who live in Avondale. For photos and a story, see Page 8B.
Avon Grove High School celebrates homecoming ...1B
The race for Chester County offices in 2019 Commissioners
Kennett Run Charities distributes grants to local organizations...7B
INDEX Opinion.......................7A Obituaries...................2B Calendar of Events......3B Classifieds..................4B
© 2007 The Chester County Press
On Tuesday, Nov. 5, voters in the Kennett Consolidated School District will select six people to serve on the school board. The contested race is in Region A, where three people will now be vying for two seats on the board. In Region B, David
Democrat Josh Maxwell is a lifelong resident of Chester County, and is serving in his third term as Downingtown’s mayor. First elected in 2010 as Downingtown’s youngest mayor at the age of 26, he has been an active advocate for the environment, infrastructure investment, and equality. As Mayor, Josh has balanced six straight no-tax-increase budgets, negotiated the largest public and private investment in Downingtown’s history in the form of a transit-oriented and train station development, and has been a vocal advocate for drug treatment and domestic violence charities. Besides serving in the part-time mayoral position, Josh works as a USAID
contractor, developing with economic and healthinternational development care opportunities. programs around the world. He holds a BA from West Chester University and an MPA from the University of Pennsylvania.
Democrat Marian Moskowitz has dedicated the last 28 years to strengthening the community. As a local developer, Marian revitalizes properties to benefit all members of the community. She redeveloped an abandoned factory in Phoenixville into an education and business hub known as Franklin Commons. For the past 12 years, Marian has served on the board of West Chester University. Marian also serves as president of the historic Colonial Theater and has assisted organizations that provide the region
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Kronenberg and Joseph Meola are the candidates for the two seats on the board. Meola is an incumbent and the current school board president. In Region C, incumbent Michael Finnegan is unopposed. Ryan Bowers is a candidate for a two-year unexpired term in Region A. The candidates whose names will appear on the
ballot for voters in Region A, which is comprised on Kennett Square Borough, are incumbent Republicans Dominic Perigo Jr. and Steven Ciprani and Democrats Maribel Garcia and Ann Parry. However, this has turned into a threeway race following the withdrawal of Garcia. Representatives of the Continued on Page 2A
Two incumbents, two challengers battle for seats on New Garden board By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer Elected to the New Garden Township Board of Supervisors in 2014, Republicans Randy Geouque and Richard Ayotte are campaigning for re-election to their second six-year terms, on the heels of some major accomplishments the township has seen during their time on the board. They are being chal-
lenged by Democrats Kristie Brodowski and David Unger, who are campaigning together on a platform of increased trail systems, providing efficient and affordable police protection and preserving the township’s natural habitat. Recently, the Chester County Press met with all four candidates, to assess their campaigns and what they want to bring to the citizens of New Garden Township.
Republican Michelle Haris Kichline is the Chair of Chester County’s Board of County Commissioners. She has served on the Board of Commissioners since 2014, when she was appointed Continued on Page 10A to fill the term previously held by Commissioner Ryan Costello. She was appointed unanimously by the judiciary of the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County. In November 2015, she was elected to a full four-year term as a Commissioner for Chester County. Commissioner Kichline was selected by her fellow commissioners to coPhoto by Richard L. Gaw chair VISTA 2025, Chester Republicans Richard Ayotte and Randy Geouque are County’s public/private campaigning for re-election to the New Garden Board Continued on Page 3A
of Supervisors.
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