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The Ballet Studio marks 50 years of dance and family
What to know about New Jersey’s plastic bag and polystyrene foam product ban
By JAsMiNe Lee Fifty years ago, Lisa Zola’s mother created a space that welcomes dancers to express themselves and leave their worries at the door. Lisa Zola-De Libero continues to follow in her mother’s footsteps with the help of her staff to ensure their students’ smiles and laughter for years to come. The Ballet Studio is a recreational dance studio where its students don’t just learn how to dance, but experience a space filled with joy and happiness as soon as they walk through those doors. This year, The Ballet Studio is celebrating its 50th anniversary and has maintained its traditions and philosophy for decades. “Their daughters came to us, their granddaughters came to us, and now their greatgranddaughters dance with us. Four generations of dancers,” said Lisa Zola-De Libero, the director of The Ballet Studio. Zola-De Libero said that 50 years later, she still has the greatgranddaughters of women who have danced with them coming and dancing at the studio. See STUDIO, Page 12
By ReBeKAh SchrOeDer
Saplings grow at Chesterfield Organic Orchards, a reimagined farm in the location formerly used for the Honey Brook Organic Farm Community Supported Agriculture program. (Photo by E.M. Hume.)
A new orchard sprouts on grounds of a familiar farm By SUe FerrArA Spend a morning with organic farmer Jim Kinsel, and his wife Sherry Dudas, owners of an Ellisdale Road farm in Chesterfield, and you might agree with my daughter’s conclusion after our visit. “Mom,” she said, “people think farmers just put seeds in the ground. They don’t realize every-
thing farmers have to know and do to grow food.” That observation is true, but what seems more true to me is this: Jim Kinsel is a modern-day Ben Franklin, using his farm in Chesterfield, as Franklin once used his New Jersey farm, to improve farming methods for fellow farmers in an effort to yield healthier and more abundant food choices for consumers.
Yes, that Benjamin Franklin– printer, postmaster, and diplomat– retired at the age of 42, leaving Philadelphia for a farm on the Delaware river in Burlington County. According to a 1929 research paper Franklin purchased the farm as an estate, but it became “a miniature experiment station.” Franklin carried out “projects in drainage, in crop rotation, and See ORCHARD, Page 10
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When walking into the grocery store and going about your business, many people have likely experienced the frustration of making it to the register, then realizing—”I forgot the reusable bags!” No worries, you think, opting for plastic bags instead, hoping the environment will forgive you as a regular consumer trying to do their best. Under new statewide legislation enforced from May 4 onwards, New Jersey businesses are now unable to distribute and sell single-use plastic bags, as well as polystyrene foam products, making this moment a figment of the past for what is being described as “the strongest” bag ban in the nation. Residents cannot receive plastic bags from grocery stores equal to or larger than 2,500 square feet, restaurants, pharmacies, as well as retail and convenience stores. Likewise, polystyrene plates, cups and utensils are no longer going See BAGS, Page 8
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