see TEACHERS

Continued from pg. 1 Emergency Services (ACES) and Hanover County Public Schools (HCPS) celebrated the official opening of the Tools 4 Teachers store on Saturday, June 25 at the store’s ribbon cutting ceremony. The Arc of Hanover donated their additional warehouse space to make room for the Tools 4 Teachers store, located in the back of Arc’s Thrift Store at 10193 Washington Highway, Glen Allen.

The Tools 4 Teachers program delivers donated school supplies to the four HCPS middle schools based on submitted requests by teachers. Originally launched in October 2021, the program was dreamt up by a group of residents and retired teachers who saw a need in the community.

Pat Hubert, president of MCEF and champion of the Tools 4 Teachers cause, said it all began during a service at Messiah Lutheran Church in August 2021. The church has collected school supplies for Lutheran Family Services for a number of years, but due to a surplus in donations that year, the church was turned away and left with a collection of extra supplies.

“And somebody pipes up in congregation and says, ‘Well, Richmond has a teacher store,’” said Hubert. “And I raised my hand and said, ‘Well, does Hanover have one?’”

Determined to find out, Hubert attended a Hanover Food Network meeting and requested a representative from the school district to attend. Hubert, who sat next to two retired HCPS teachers, stood during the meeting to call attention to the church’s extra school supplies.

“Everyone gets involved in the conversation that’s attending the meeting and 45 minutes later, all of a sudden, we have a working group who want to know more,” Hubert said.

Hubert said he was unaware of the amount of money that teachers spent on school supplies every year.

“But I was the right person, at the right time, in the right place knowing what could be done,” he said.

The small group of volunteers, many of whom were retired teachers, began to meet regularly to pave the way for the store’s eventual opening. ACES and MCEF organized a budget line for the county and school district, retired teachers and the school district came up with a base list of supplies to build an inventory, and the first delivery was officially shipped off in October.

Teachers of the four middle schools use QR codes to submit their requests from the list of available supplies. From October through April, the program filled 400 requests.

“The cost was probably close to $15,000 worth of stuff that they didn’t have to dig into their own pockets for,” Hubert said. “Truly amazing.”

Carrie Cicuto, a representative of HCPS, told attendees of the store’s ribbon cutting ceremony the great impact that the Tools 4 Teachers program leaves in classrooms.

“We all have received so much gratitude from teachers who take advantage of filing out the form to get what they need,” Cicuto said.

She added that there have even been a “handful of requests” for items not included in the form that the program has succeeded in fulfilling from additional donations.

“Being able to fill teachers’ buckets with little types of things means the world to them and really just speaks to who we are in Hanover, how we rally together and come together for teachers because, ultimately, it’s for the students in our classrooms,” Cicuto said.

Hubert expressed his love for helping teachers and students in need. He said among the many teachers who expressed their gratitude for the program was a fellow volunteer who, in her 30 years of teaching, spent around $10,000 out of pocket on supplies.

“These teachers, they want to take care of the kids,” he said.

Hubert said they targeted middle schools first as they were identified as being the most in need, but they hope to expand their program to incorporate the four HCPS high schools in the next few years. “If we ever expand past the four middle schools, we need help,” Hubert said. “We need individuals, businesses and everybody to put Tools 4 Teachers in their annual budgets. If you do that, we think that this could continue for a long time as a community involvement, involving both government resources and also private resources and individuals.”

“Even though MCEF and ACES are the two main organizations that are doing this, we’re open to working with our other partners in the community,” added Anthony Keitt of ACES during the ceremony. “…We want to make this a community outreach helping our school system.”

The program asks community members to consider donating the following school supplies to help decrease the personal investment teachers make every year: reams of colored card stock, packs of Velcro, poster board, colored pencils, black pens, red pens, expo markers, adult scissors, white index cards, colored index cards, stickie notes, box of tissues, labels, binders, magnets, magnet clips, colored duct tape, pencils, notebook paper, highlighters, markers, a bag with a variety of incentive items, colored construction paper, wall hanging putty, birthday certificates, accomplishment certificate, pack of glue sticks, reusable water bottle, large post it tablet, earbuds, subject notebooks, picture hangers, stress balls, cups, eraser, colored pencils, wooden toothpicks, scotch tape, paper towels and dividers.

Item donations can be dropped off at either MCEF, located at 7235 Stonewall Parkway in Mechanicsville, or ACES, located at 507 Caroline Street B in Ashland.

Monetary donations can be made on either the MCEF (https:// www.4mcef.com/) or ACES (https:// aceshanover.org/) websites using the donation buttons and tag “Tools 4 Teachers” or “T4T.” More information on the Tools 4 Teachers program can be found on both websites.

Checks can be mailed to: MCEF, P.O. Box 604, Mechanicsville, VA, 23111 or ACES, P.O. Box 114, 507B Caroline Street, Ashland, VA, 23005.

“It’s a blessing to work in a community that’s willing to step up and do whatever it needs,” Hubert said during the ribbon cutting ceremony. Together with ACES, Arc of Hanover, volunteers, Cicuto and other contributors, Hubert cut the ribbon with a round of applause, officially marking the grand opening of the store.

UNIVERSE

Continued from pg. 2 Dehmelt of the University of Washington and Wolfgang Paul of the University of Bonn for their work in the development of atomic clocks. NIST's work is cited as advancing their earlier research.

In 1993, NIST-7 comes online; eventually, it achieves an uncertainty that is 20 times more accurate than NBS-6. In 1999, NIST-F1 begins operation with an accuracy to about one second in 20 million years, making it one of the most accurate clocks ever made.

This level of precision now means that official timekeepers will add or subtract “leap seconds” as needed to keep civil time in synch with Earth’s variable rotation.

If you’re interested in setting your clocks more precisely, point your browser to https://time.gov/widget/ widget.htm. It will even estimate the delay due to transmission over the Internet.

Now that we’re into summer, having passed the solstice on June 20, it may surprise some to know that on July 4 we were at aphelion – our greatest distance from the Sun. The seasonal temperature variations are due not to the Earth-Sun distance, but to our planet’s 23½ degree equatorial tilt relative to the plane of the ecliptic.

Pre-dawn planet watchers will strain to see Venus and Jupiter low to the east early in July, but they climb higher as the month progresses. Venus is closer to the horizon, and will be much brighter than Jupiter. Look for them below the Pleiades in Taurus.

Emerging from evening twilight, Saturn will be to the southwest and Mars to the west-southwest -- both about 30 to 40 degrees above the horizon. They’ll move closer together on the sky and be separated by about

Christina Amano Dolan/The Local

The Tools 4 Teachers offi ce and inventory is located at the back of the Arc of Hanover Thrift Store, located at 10193 Washington Highway, Glen Allen.

5 degrees by month’s end, appearing above the western horizon as the sky darkens.

At mid-month about three hours after sunset, the constellation Lyra and its brightest star Vega mark the zenith sky. To the southeast, about 40 degrees from Vega (50 degrees above the horizon) is Altair, also known as alpha Aquilae – the brightest star in the constellation Aquila, the Eagle. Deneb in Cygnus is to the northeast about 60 degrees above the horizon. These three stars mark the Summer Triangle, and they are visible virtually all night as the sky appears to rotate over our part of the globe. Ursa Major is to the northwest, with the familiar “pointer stars” in the bowl of the “big dipper” allow your eye to follow their line up to Polaris, which marks the approximate north pole of the celestial sphere. The “handle” of the dipper can be followed back to the west to find Arcturus in the constellation Bootes. To the northeast Casseiopia looks like a crooked W on the sky. As you notice Mars to west, you’ll also see its “rival” Antares to the southwest in the constellation Scorpio.

Lunar phases for July: First

see UNIVERSE pg. 12

POWERINGA

There’sstrengthinpeople workingtogethertobuilda better,brightercommunity.

LocalcooperativeRECgetsit. Fromvolunteering,supporting areaschools,recruiting businessesthatprovidehundreds ofjobsandpartneringtobring broadband,RECenergizes thecommunityside-by-side withmembers.

Inaddition,thousandsofREC membersdonateandroundup theirmonthlypowerbillstothe nextwholedollartofund The PowerofChange.Theproceeds aremadeavailabletononprofit, charitableorganizationsacross REC’sservicearea.

COMMUNITY. TOGETHER.

RECandmembers. PoweringaBrighter Community.Together.

Photos/Ashland Museum

The Ashland Museum and the Town held a morning of ‘Fishing Like Huck Finn’ for local youth at DeJarnette Park on June 28.

Ashland Museum activity sees everyone catching a fi sh

Contributed Report Ashland-Hanover Local

The Ashland Museum and the Town of Ashland Parks and Recreation collaborated on a morning of “Fishing Like Huck Finn” at DeJarnette Park on June 28. Experienced worm wranglers Rob DuPriest, Randy Lewis, Woody Tucker and Ann and Charlie Martin helped the kids get their poles ready. Everyone spread out around the pond and soon the fish and turtles were biting. There are some very hungry fish in the pond. All the new anglers caught several fish and released them back into the pond.

The museum has another collaboration planned with Ashland Parks and Recreation for Tuesday, July 19 from 9 to 11 a.m. at DeJarnette Park and will feature nature photography for middle school students. For information and to register, email ashlandmuseum@comcast.net or call 804-368-7314.

Ashland Museum Trivia Night will be held on Thursday, July 21, at 6 p.m. at Origin Beer Lab, 106 S. Railroad Ave and will feature an evening of 20 questions and sometimes the right answers. No reservations needed. Just show up and have fun.

CALENDAR

Continued from pg. 4 Mechanicsville. Bring a covered dish and join in with a group celebrating faith, fellowship, friends and fun. Meetings are cancelled if Hanover County Public Schools are two hours late or cancelled due to inclement weather. To register, call the church at 804-746-9073. For more information, call Janet Lewis at 804-398-8947.

UNIVERSE

Continued from pg. 11

Quarter on July 6 at 10:14 p.m.; Full Moon on July 13 at 2:37 p.m.; Last Quarter on July 20 at 10:18 a.m.; and New Moon on July 28 at 1:56 p.m. All times

The Hanover County Historical Society will be conducting free tours of the Old

are Eastern Daylight. The Full Moon coincides with perigee, so it will appear larger and brighter than usual. The Moon will be at apogee on July 26.

If readers have questions about astronomy in particular or science in general that Hanover Courthouse on the Historic Courthouse Green from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. every second Tuesday through December. The address is 13182 Hanover Courthouse Road in Hanover. For more information, visit http://www. hanoverhistorical.org/index.

they would like covered in one of these columns, contact me at gspagna@rmc.edu. (I have retired from Randolph-Macon College but will continue these columns and use of this email address for the foreseeable future.