State Representative Michael D’Agostino addresses the committee
By Rob McGreevy
The Hamden Democratic Town Committee met on Tuesday night in Hamden Public Library’s senior center to begin its spring session and to welcome newly elected committee members.
According to the chairman of the Hamden Democratic Town Committee, Lew Panzo, the committee welcomed 23 newly elected members. Some incumbent members said that number was even higher.
Whether it was 23 or more than half of the 63 members as some suggested, this is an unusually high turnover for the committee.
“Our body here was an older body of people who served here for 25-30 years and it was time for a change for some of them,” Panzo said.
The meeting was full of young people, and the loudest and most active voices in the crowd all belonged to newly elected members.
The committee didn’t reach a quorum and therefore was unable to conduct official business, but there were still plenty of opportunities for members to ask questions and voice opinions.
Connecticut state senator Martin Looney attended and briefed the room on the party’s status in the town, as well as the state.
He spoke about the senate’s general agenda and how it was going to act on certain matters, as well as what the Hamden Democratic Town Committee could do to help.
After Looney spoke, Panzo allowed a number of speakers who were either running for elected office, or had opened an exploratory committee to do so, to speak to the room. The group included Connecticut state representative Michael D’Agostino, who is running for attorney general.
The group also included two prominent Connecticut democrats — both vying for the same elected office.
Susan Bysiewicz announced she had opened an exploratory committee to run for governor. Her political resume includes 12 years as secretary of state. She spoke at length on major Connecticut issues, including establishing a pay equity law, infrastructure and especially tolls.
Bronin is a former aide to maligned Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy. He lasered in on fixing Connecticut’s budget issues, while also brushing upon the base Connecticut Democratic issues that his opponent did – taxes, tolls, infrastructure, etc.
The HDTC gives these candidates a platform to reach Democrats in places they may not have been able to otherwise.
“Especially in an election year we have so many candidates running they will generally invite candidates to attend town committee meetings so they can present their case,” Looney said.
The HDTC did not have enough members to conduct its affairs, but going forward the newly elected members will be officially members at the committees next meeting on March 12.
Panzo seemed hopeful toward the new and exciting future of the Hamden Democratic Town Committee.
“It’s good to see this new influx of young people,” said Panzo, “that’s what this party needs, it needs to be revitalized.”
Looking ahead Panzo says that Hamden has always followed along with the state’s Democratic platform, “but there’s talk about us writing our own platform” — something that Panzo said will probably take place this year.
Scaling up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is no easy feat.
It’s an extreme altitude mountain trek. It takes hikers through five different ecological zones, from farmland to alpine desert to snow capped arctic peaks. Temperatures can reach an upwards of 104 degrees and at night drastically drop between 20 to -20 degrees Fahrenheit, not including windchill. People can start experiencing acute mountain sickness symptoms as low as 8,000 feet and, as one enters the higher altitude zones, limited oxygen begins to impact one’s physiology, officially making the experience empowering yet treacherous.
Now, imagine ascending to the top at 64 years old.
Hamden resident Lew Nescott is taking on this challenge wholeheartedly. He flew out on Feb. 18.
In order to reach the top of the 19,341-foot summit, the body has to train itself, physically and mentally, to adapt to change. He felt the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University would be the perfect place to help him get back into tip top shape.
Nescott reached out to Bruce Koeppen, the dean of the school of medicine, about wanting to team up for this project. Koeppen then reached out to the biomedical sciences professor Tom Martin.
Martin said, “yeah, let’s give this a try,” and then blasted a call out to the first-year medical students to see who was interested in taking on such a project— perhaps as the student’s required capstone project.
Katherine Woolley was the first to jump on the offer.
“Oh, I hopped on it,” she said.
You can say it was fate.
“I was really excited about it,” Woolley said. “Honestly it seemed too good to be true.”
Katherine Woolley
Woolley is a bright-eyed 23 year old from Denver, Colo. She is an avid rock climber, hiker and snowboarder who loves the outdoors and nature. Having done undergrad at the University of Colorado Boulder, studying Integrative Physiology with an emphasis in exercise science, she knew that Quinnipiac University, nestled in between Sleeping Giant State Park, was the perfect choice for med school.
“The facilities are beautiful and the professors are amazing,” she said.
The year before she moved out to the East Coast, Woolley took a gap year, hiking all over Southeast Asia for three months, developing an appreciation for what the human body is capable of. She explored Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Nepal and India.
Woolley and Professor Martin
“I did some high altitude trekking in Nepal, which is where I kind of had my first idea of making my capstone project involving high altitude and mountaineering,” she said. “It’s such an interesting culture there.”
The entire infrastructure of Nepal is based on Nepali Sherpas taking tourists up different mountains that normally one couldn’t do on their own.
“I thought it was so interesting that this 5-foot-2 tiny man can carry like 200 pounds on his back and run up the mountain and all these big buff tourists are struggling to catch their breath,” she said.
Nescott’s request couldn’t have aligned better with Woolley’s curiosity and career aspirations.
“This project is so multifaceted,” she said. “Not only are we helping a master’s athlete who came out of a retirement for a climb to do something amazing, but he’s doing it all for charity.”
Woolley said that working with Nescott has been inspirational and that he is motivated, hard working and doing this from the bottom of his heart. Nescott is funding his trip all out of pocket. All the money raised will go directly to the Sarah Foundation, which provides programs and services for people with intellectual and other disabilities who live in Connecticut.
According to the foundation’s website, Nescott said this climb is personal. He is climbing for Sarah, as well as his cousin, George or “Geo.”
“I think this goes to show you that if Lew can come out of retirement, hike to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, then anyone in the Sarah Foundation, anyone anywhere, if you are down on your luck, if you are turning over a new leaf, you can do anything you set your mind to,” Woolley said.
“It’s been a real honor to work with him and everything that this climb stands for.”
Nescott started to ascend to the top of the mountain on Feb. 20 or Feb. 21, but in order to prepare, Woolley and Martin devised a strategic plan for Nescott to help him through the harsh conditions.
Even though Nescott is an experienced climber having previously scaled three of the seven highest mountains in the world, he still needs to train and prepare for that high hypoxic environment.
“We came up with high intensity interval training, which has been shown to improve your cardiovascular fitness very efficiently,” Woolley said. “You can go for like an hour jog or you can do a 30 minute HIIT routine and you’d be sucking in a lot more air after the HIIT routine.”
The program also has different measures of heart rates that they want Nescott to hit. He has his own monitor with a watch he wears so he knows what beat per minute he needs to be at and for how long. These exercises can be done on his own, which is something Woolley thought was important.
“It’s a pretty strict exercise regiment,” she said. “Now he has the equipment to really workout properly.”
Testing began eight weeks ago before training started in the Motion Analysis Laboratory.
The work doesn’t end when Nescott returns from Africa on March 1.
From the plane, he will head to Quinnipiac and, on March 2, the rest of the data will be collected and they will begin to see how the operative outcome affected a bunch of the different variables.
“And on top of that, we have data we are collecting while he is climbing,” she said. “So he is wearing a bio strap. It’s going to be collecting heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature, activity level and GPS, all that kind of stuff. He is going to be wearing a pulse oximeter, O2 saturation…”
Woolley though is most excited about the video interviews Nescott will record, answering questions like: How nauseous are you? How are you sleeping? How are you eating? This is all to see if Nescott is getting altitude sickness.
Woolley will be able to see his cognitive abilities, how he is talking and how he looks. She also has him doing ataxia exams, heel to toe walking and a stroope test for air detection.
“The whole idea of all the senses is so we can recreate this climb from a data standpoint,” Martin said. “This is how he went from this elevation, how the heart rate and body temperature changed …that kind of stuff.”
Whooley said it may seem like a niche study, but there really isn’t any other data on anyone like Nescott out there.
“It’s a great opportunity for Katherine and the learning for the school of medicine students,” Martin said. “It’s also a way to help advance science potentially. To kind of get an idea of how athletes can respond to the altitude, it benefits the community, it benefits Lew, it benefits the foundation, it benefits the students and it also has the ability to potentially help the sciences. It hits all those landmarks.”
The research isn’t even close to being done yet, but Woolley is thankful for the opportunity.
“I am really grateful for Lew, the foundation is awesome, the school has been very supportive and Dr. Martin has been the best mentor ever,” she said. “He’s even teaching me an independent study, which is something he is doing out of his own free time.”
According to Hamden Mayor Curt Balzano Leng, the Hamden Legislative Council recently approved the town’s first “Animal Control Facility Gift Fund.” The fund is the foundation for a new Hamden or regional facility and was established as a reaction to the community wanting a secure shelter.
“We would like to do a little better with animals than we are doing with them now,” Leng said.
Authorizing this fund shows the commitment to create a new animal control facility and allows those interested in helping the town and shelters make this goal a reality. According to the Town of Hamden’s Facebook page, any donation made to the gift fund must follow the town’s procurement process and solely be used for the purpose of a new facility.
While Hamden’s Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue and Where The Love is Animal Rescue are excited to hear this news, their main priority is to tend to their animals needs. Co-founder of Where the Love Is Animal Rescue, Christina Hackett, said all of the animals that arrive are examined by a veterinarian and given any treatment needed.
“Before [the dogs] leave and go to their forever homes they are microchipped, vaccinated and are either spayed or neutered,” Hackett said.
With the help of donations from pet stores like Pet Valu, grants and fundraising events, Where The Love Is is able to cover medical bills with that money. This year, they spent about $80,000 in vet bills and were able to use all of the adoption fees received and money donated/fundraised to help cover the cost.
To shelter their animals, they rent out two places.
“We have a garage and a kennel,” Hackett said.
The garage holds six 5-by-5 cages and the kennel holds four 5-by-5 cages with 20 dogs and two cats to care for. Hackett is happy where the animals are sheltered, but is also hopeful the gift fund allows all of the animals to be housed together soon.
While the animal rescue shelters continue to raise money to help support the animals they rescue, they also do what they can to raise money for a new facility. According to Leng, Hamden’s biggest contributor to help raise money for the shelter is Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue.
“[Last year] we held a small blue collar fundraiser that inspired the town to make an animal shelter fund,” Gimme Shelter volunteer Lenny Young said.
Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue has continuously held events to fundraise money for their animals, but their next big event will be a fundraiser to help establish a Hamden or regional animal shelter. On Feb. 15, JaSa Asian Cuisine will donate 20 percent of each pre-tax bill to the Hamden Animal Shelter Gift Fund. Young and other Gimme volunteers are excited for this event.
“We chose the day after Valentine’s Day because it’s the Chinese New Year, which is the year of the dog,” Young said.
The purpose of this fundraiser is to bring the animal shelter issue out of obscurity.
“We are trying to get people to support it, not necessarily help out. We just need people to spread the word,” Young said.
To get 20 percent of your bill donated, go to Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue’s website, print out the flier and bring it with you to the restaurant.
“Every penny goes to the animal shelter gift fund,” Young said.
According to the Where The Love Is Facebook page, the shelter has been doing more adoption events than fundraising events. On Feb. 9-10, volunteers went to various Pet Valu stores in Connecticut. At these events they bring along a few furry friends to interact with possible families who want to adopt a rescued animal.
They have yet to release any upcoming events, but are more than happy to have volunteers come in and help in any way possible, Hackett stated.
With the foundation of the gift fund under way, our furry friends in Hamden will hopefully be housed together in their new animal shelter very soon.
Danny Glover sat down with members in and around the Quinnipiac community Tuesday night to discuss the start of Black History Month and how he’s using his platform to speak about change.
Known for his roles on camera from movies such as “Lethal Weapon,” “The Color Purple,” and “Angels in the Outfield,” Glover said he and his mom both agreed his fame was meant to go beyond the movies he performed in. This agreement was what brought him to Quinnipiac’s campus.
Glover discussed how his passion didn’t come from acting, but by identifying and looking up to people like his parents, Bob Moses, and several civil rights movements.
“I want to be of some use,” Glover said. “At the beginning, I felt that I was of some use and the idea of being a child of the civil rights movement and how much I identified with those moments.”
He discussed using his acting, like in “Master Harold,” as a way to start a discussion not just about black people, but about the world.
“It gave me a path, it gave me a way,” Glover said. “Not only could I talk about the system of Apartheid in the most brilliant writing. At the same time I could express about how I feel about the world and the justice of the world.”
Don Sawyer, the interim associate vice president for academic affairs and chief diversity officer at Quinnipiac, spoke on the importance of having someone like Glover, who’s had a strong presence on TV, talk about ways he’s reaching out to help others.
“I mean a lot of people know him as an actor but not a lot know necessarily about his activism,” Sawyer said. “You don’t have to just be an actor or just be an activist but you can blend your career with also the support of the local community.”
“She is a tireless and effective fundraiser,” UCLA distinguished professor Steven Lippman said.
Olian spearheaded a fundraising windfall that saw $400 million come into the school.
Lippman added, “Dean Olian has shown herself to be incredibly energetic and hard working with unsurpassed attention to detail. Her entrepreneurial bent is ideally suited to help Quinnipiac University excel in general and ascend the rankings in particular.”
Before Olian officially becomes president on July 1, here are some facts you may not know about her and her journey to Quinnipiac.
1. She had a unique upbringing
Olian’s parents escaped the Holocaust — a disaster that separated the couple for seven years before they were reunited. They moved to Australia, where Olian was born. She “ping-ponged” between Australia and Israel during her childhood, and also spent time as an au pair in Switzerland, according to a website run by UCLA assistant dean Dylan Stafford.
That same website revealed that Olian had cancer in her 20s and left her unable to have children. She said her experience is part of the reason why she loves working with young people and being involved in their education.
3. Her education has an international flair
Olian earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. After traveling to the United States with her first husband without a work visa, she entered grad school. She earned her master’s and doctorate in industrial relations from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
4. She teaches an extremely popular class at UCLA
Olian teaches “Critical Milestones in Preparing for Life in Leadership” with Peter Guber. Guber is CEO of Mandalay Entertainment and owns the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.
5. She is more than just a professor and dean
Olian is also the author of a weekly syndicated newspaper column and host of a monthly television show on current topics in business. She is a much sought-after speaker and consultant for major corporations. In addition she serves on the board of advisors for Catalyst, a nonprofit organization with a mission of creating better workplaces for women.
With the amount of coverage and hype emanating from the Super Bowl every year, it could be considered a national holiday.
For Matt Lussier, the game brought a different holiday to his family when he was growing up.
“Every year, the day after the Super Bowl, it was ‘new TV day’ in my house,” recalled the 21-year-old Connecticut resident. “My dad would go to Best Buy and bring home a new TV.”
Buying a new television set, a day late of catching the most watched broadcast on television, seems inopportune. But Lussier explained that his dad was actually taking advantage of something in retail that is commonly known as “wardrobing.”
Seen most with clothing, hence its name, wardrobing is when a customer purchases an expensive item that they only plan to wear once, like to a fancy party, for example. Then, the customer goes back to the store to the return the item and receive a refund.
A clever trick, given that you don’t accidentally damage what you buy, wardrobing is more inconvenient for companies than some may like to believe. Returning a product does not mean it can be simply returned to the shelf, especially when it comes to large electronics.
“People would buy bigger, nicer TVs for their Super Bowl parties, and then return them the next day with the packaging open”, said Lussier. “And my dad would buy those TVs for a discount because their packaging was damaged.”
A box opened just enough that a TV can be placed right back in it to be returned.
I took a trip to my local Best Buy in North Haven on the Monday following Super Bowl LII, to see if I, too, could benefit from the Lussier family tradition. Although the store did have several items available for discounted price, mostly headphones and Bluetooth speakers, I did not see any open TVs.
Perhaps wardrobing with television sets has faded like childhood memories, or perhaps Mr. Lussier got lucky. Nevertheless, “the big game” of the National Football League does garner other connections to the television industry, apart from its highly anticipated commercials.
According to an interview with The Star Tribune, B-Stock Solutions, an online marketplace for retailers’ returns and overstocks, “2016-2017 customers returned twice as many TVs between January and March”.
At first glance, this appears to be evidence supporting TV wardrobing, and it lines up with the Super Bowl time slot. But companies and analysts claim that this period is important for consumer electronic sales for other reasons.
In the early months of a new year, companies hold off from unveiling new TV models until February or March, predicting that many consumers need a recovery period following purchases during the holiday season and Black Friday.
According to CNN, many higher-end models of TVs of the previous year do not go on sale until the start of the next year. These models were not even included in Black Friday sales, but many companies are eager to clear inventory for, “the next wave of 2018 TVs.”
Coincidentally, this means getting a TV for the Super Bowl party becomes a more affordable option – one that fortunately excludes any abuse of a store’s return policy.
“TV Day” might not make it to the calendar, but holding off your purchase of a shiny new 4K television until after the holidays for a bigger discount is definitely something to celebrate.
As Sunday creeps closer, America steadies itself for an annual Sunday ritual. Super Bowl Sunday stands as an essentially religious holiday for most of the nation, from the most zealous of fans to the newest sheep in the gridiron flock. While the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots prepare for battle in Minneapolis, another sort of preparation is made some 1,052 miles east.
“You could make football pancakes,” Linda White said.
“I could do that,” said James Ford with a hint of curiosity. “I could do that (Sunday morning).”
Hungry yet? (Graphic by Andrew Weiss)
White and Ford are a tag team duo behind the Breakfast All Day stand at Quinnipiac University’s Café Q, the main source of on-campus food for students. The two coworkers have different plans for Sunday, as well as different teams.
“I believe Philadelphia is going to win by three,” Ford said.
White delivered a look of disgust.
“The New England Patriots are going to win, and we’re going to beat (Philadelphia) by 14 points,” she said. “That’s my opinion.”
The two aren’t the only ones around campus, or Hamden, readying for Sunday.
The area is split among those rooting for New England, those for Philadelphia, and those that are simply rooting against one team for their own reasons.
“Eagles,” Austin Fraser said. “I don’t like the Patriots.”
“Our one rule,” Patriots fan Pat Pitts said, “is that (my roommates and I) are only watching with people (that support New England). We don’t mind if you don’t like the Patriots, just don’t say it out loud. Keep it to yourself.”
Game day planning for students and Hamden residents alike remain similar: what is the best place to watch the game?
Quinnipiac student Brianna Robinson is looking for a good spot to enjoy the atmosphere. “I heard of a party. I might go and hop around (some) parties.”
“There’s going to be a riot at the Bobcat,” said Lauren Shanley, referring to the statue near the residence halls on Quinnipiac’s main campus. “We’re going to break s— down again. I know of a few parties though.”
Fandoms may be split, but the one thing anyone watching the game Sunday can agree on is that preparation is key. Preparation, of course, meaning party food.
Nachos, chicken wings, pizza. Find it on tables, couches, and laps around Hamden as Sunday evening approaches. Per thedailymeal.com, all three rank in the top five most commonly eaten foods on Super Bowl Sunday.
(Graphic by Andrew Weiss)
The same ranking has chicken wings reigning supreme among Super Bowl snacks, and the numbers back it up. In the United States this year, more than 1.35 billion chicken wings are expected to be served, hor d’oeuvre’d, and eaten over the course of Sunday’s main event, per the National Chicken Council. That is enough wings to put 625 wings on each seat in every NFL stadium, or enough to circle the Earth three times.
Even with an increased number of wings and food being prepared for the weekend, Ryan Currier of the Quinnipiack Valley Health District is confident Hamden can chow down without concern.
During times like the Super Bowl or around certain holidays, the number of people dining out or ordering take-out increases, and as such, the possibility of illness extends further,” Currier said.
“Interestingly enough, the food-borne illnesses I have seen through the years have largely not been linked to these busy times as one might expect, and have rather been sporadic. This is a credit to the food service establishments, that they are able to continue to operate safely while dealing with the dramatic increase in traffic.”
Most people interviewed for this story recommended the same three restaurants in Side Street, Eli’s and Droogies.
Side Street is commonly referred for its wings, Eli’s for its nachos and Droogies for its pizza and ability to deliver.
Quinnipiac students are more likely to spend their cash instead of their meal plan, despite a food service that tailors the game-day menu.
“Our sales are half of what we usually (get on a Sunday) during the Super Bowl,” said Leann Spalding, the director of dining services at Quinnipiac. “They don’t come to the cafeteria because we’re not set up for (watching the game).”
However, Spalding said there are options in place for students looking for some Super Bowl goodies on campus.
“At the Bobcat Den, from four to five on Super Bowl Sunday, we’ll be giving away free appetizers,” Spalding said. “I know it (will include) wings, among others.”
Side Street will crank out tubs of wings, while Droogies will toss dough more than Tom Brady and Nick Foles will toss footballs. There won’t be a coin toss to see who gets their food first, just a battle for placing orders earlier and earlier. There is no Lombardi Trophy for eating the most food, but come Sunday, America will be consuming.
Quinnipiac University announced Monday afternoon that Judy D. Olian would be named the ninth president in the history of the school.
Olian takes over the role from John Lahey, who served as Quinnipiac’s president since 1978, a 31- year tenure. Lahey officially gives way to Olian on July 1, 2018.
“I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be here,” Olian said. “(I am) very excited to be joining you in building this next phase of a very special university.”
Olian takes time out to talk to Hamden mayor Curt B. Lang after her press conference.
Olian has been serving as the dean at the UCLA Anderson School of Management since 2006, and is the first female president in Quinnipiac history.
The school had been reviewing candidates for a new president since Lahey announced his impending retirement in April of 2017. Under Lahey, Quinnipiac has added two campuses and increased enrollment to more than five times as many students per year, as well as a added a polling institute and Division I athletics.
“This is an exciting time for Quinnipiac University,” Lahey said in a statement announcing Olian’s appointment. “We wish Dr. Judy Olian the best of luck as she builds on the success forged by our students, faculty and staff, working with the Quinnipiac community to move our institution to even greater levels of achievement.”
December 14, 2012, is a day that will haunt Newtown, Connecticut for decades to come. But it does not want to be defined by this one tragedy.
As the five-year anniversary has drawn closer, the residents find it a dreadful reminder of the emotions they felt that day. Even with more mass killings in the United States since 2012, the shootings at Sandy Hook still generate a sense of horror and dread and have led to calls for tighter gun control measures.
While the event is forever burned into the memories of residents, the town is making the conscientious choice to move forward and not be defined by one singular tragedy.
Scarlett Lewis lost one of her sons, Jesse, in that fateful day. When the news broke, she was devastated. Jesse was six-years old at the time.
Jesse was known for his bravery in the face of danger. During the shooting, he looked the gunman in the eye and told his classmates to run away from the gunman according to one of the parents in the April 21, 2013 broadcast of CBS’s Face the Nation. Jesse was shot and killed by Adam Lanza, looking at Lanza straight in the eye in his final moments.
While Lewis was faced with the biggest nightmare a parent could have, she didn’t want this to permanently change her outlook on life. She noticed other people had let their emotions cloud their better judgement.
“…I watched how other people reacted,” Lewis said. “And a lot of people reacted in anger. When something bad happens, the first thing we say is ‘whose fault is it?’ But I realized that if I did that, I would be another victim of Adam Lanza.”
Prior to her son’s death, Lewis worked as a realtor and municipal bonds trader. Today her life’s goal is to spread love and compassion to productively nurture children who have troubled upbringings and angry emotions. The inspiration for the cause came from Jesse himself.
Every day before school, Jesse would write on a chalkboard. It would be a new word he learned, a drawing, or something that showed he loved his parents. Lewis said that in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, she had found three words Jesse had written on the chalkboard: “Nurturing, Healing, Love.”
“I knew (then) that if the shooter in our situation had been able to give and receive love, the tragedy wouldn’t have happened. So that lead me to my mission,” Lewis said.
Soon after this discovery, Lewis started the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Foundation. Through this charity, she hopes to stop acts of rage by giving tools to parents and classrooms to show compassion for children around the world.
From the Jesse Lewis Choose Love website
Lewis is one of several parents of victims who has started a foundation in honor of their late children. She gives frequent speaking engagements preaching her methods of how love can impact one’s life. She spoke this fall at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. Previously she had delivered a TEDx talk in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 2014.
“We are gonna have to create the change we want,” Lewis said.
How was Lewis able to take action after Jesse’s death so quickly? She credits her “tremendous faith in God,” but not everyone is able to live with such a tragedy in a short amount of time.
As grief is considered a normal part of the human experience, there has not been much research done on what grief may do to a person, let alone to a parent who lost their child. In the April 2011 Social Work academic journal published by the Oxford University Press, author Elizabeth C. Pomeroy would probably categorize Lewis as a “resilient” person. Pomeroy describes a subject, Jan, who developed thyroid cancer after her husband’s death and had their mother die of ovarian cancer two years after her own diagnosis. Despite occasionally feeling negative emotions and having to care for her children at the same time, Jan did not let her problems affect her life too much.
“This is not to say there were not times when (Jan) was depressed, anxious, exhausted or in crisis. She experienced a roller coaster of emotions over several years. However, throughout all the bleak periods of her life, she managed to reach out for help, successfully parent her two teenage children, and restore herself to good health,” Pomeroy wrote of Jan.
Pomeroy wrote that the best way to help someone who is going through the sometimes-lengthy process of grieving a loss is to be empathetic towards the person and what they have lost.
“Although empathy has been used by social workers as a basic tool in practitioner-client communication, research during the past decade has examined the neuroscience at the core of this skill. Clearly, empathy is a key component in assisting a grieving child, adult, or family,” Pomeroy wrote.
Organizations such as Lewis’s are using the event to enact positive change or start preventative measures to stop events like this from happening in the future. Many of the prominent charities include the Boston-based Safe & Sound Schools which is focused on school safety and the Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation which focuses on animal conservation.
The Sandy Hook Promise is the most well-known of these charities that came post-shooting, however. According to the charity’s co-founder Mark Barden, their mission is to “prevent gun-related deaths … so that no parent experiences the senseless, horrific loss of their child.”
Barden lost his son in the attack that fateful day. Since then he has dedicated his life to helping people learn the signs of whether someone will hurt themselves or other people before it is too late.
“Our shooter gave off signs for many months, and we know that many others since have as well. We want to be able to teach people that these tragedies are preventable when we know the signs,” Barden said.
Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy created Sandy Hook Advisory Commision in 2013 to figure out what possible motives Lanza may have had to terrorize the school. It appears to agree with what Barden was saying before: while the group does not know what type of mental illness Lanza had (e.g. psychotic or personality based), they do believe it is important to look for the risk factors of what may cause someone to commit such a heinous act without stigmatizing people with mental illnesses in general. External factors like parental and/or substance abuse and internal factors such as high levels of anger are considered signs to look out for when identifying a potentially dangerous individual.
The SHAC has recommended massive amounts of gun control reform in the state such as mandatory background checks for every weapon (approved and adopted) and requiring gun licenses and firearm permits to be renewed on a regular basis (not approved nor adopted).
The lack of considerable federal gun control reform was noted by the nation as a whole. In particular, Former President Barack Obama considers the lack of legislation after Sandy Hook, such as the failed ban on assault weapons in 2013, the “biggest disappointment” of his career in an interview with NBC News.
The assault rifle used in the school, a magazine and the rifle used against Lanza’s mother (source: Sandy Hook Advisory Commission)
“I thought that ‘okay, this has to be a catalyst for some action by Congress.’ I didn’t expect some huge movement on gun safety legislation but I thought ‘well, they’re going to have to make some effort.’ And the fact that it didn’t even get the kind of hearing and votes that you would have expected… you had bipartisan legislature and it didn’t even matter,” Obama said in January 2017.
According to Barden, the Sandy Hook Promise was a major reason that President Obama was able to reform mental health issues as part of the 21st Century Cures Act that he signed into law in December 2016.
Regardless, there was very little change at a legislative level and (along with the Aurora, Colorado shooting in August 2012) kick started a trend of mass shootings across the country. In particular, the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida in June 2016 and the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017 were both far deadlier than Sandy Hook shooting, with Vegas in particular having more than double the casualties of it.
The five deadliest shootings of the past five years in the United States (source: Gun Violence Archive)
While Barden knows that Connecticut will be forever impacted by this day, his organization has focused much more on national legislation. Sandy Hook Promise is based in Newtown, but has field offices in Florida, Massachusetts, Ohio, Washington, D.C. and California. They have not made public appearances and calls for help for a while, but do occasionally help those affected by other mass shootings such as the Disarm Hate Rally that happened in August 2016 to support the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
Changes were also able to be made at the site of the attack itself. The Newtown Board of Education is trying to maintain a positive atmosphere for the children attending the town’s elementary schools.
One Board of Education member, who requested to remain anonymous, says that several programs started in the years following the shooting to create a productive future for the town.
The board spearheaded many changes and new organizations to the school including the climate and culture committee, the teacher forum and a new daycare for faculty members.
Regardless, the town will be affected by this for a long time and is still in the process of recovery.
“It’s still a process. It’s still difficult. It’s going to take time to heal all wounds,” the Board of Education Member said, trembling.
Newtown resident KC Mills agrees with that sentiment. She lives roughly one mile away from the school, and can recall what happened to her that day as if it had just happened.
Originally from New Hampshire, Mills had four friends driving into Newtown to pick her up to go shopping and head down to New York City. When the news of a shooting broke out, they were only ten minutes away from her house.
Once her friends arrived, they went to the Danbury mall to relax and find out what was happening while away from the town. Mills was not prepared for what her husband would tell her.
“I asked my husband who was a policeman to see what was going on,” Mills said. “We went to the Danbury mall and when we were having lunch, my husband called me back and said that they think there are 20 people dead and mostly believed to be children. You just don’t want to believe it, like you want to tell them you’re wrong. We got back home and… we know what happened.”
Michelle Babyak, one of Mills’s friends, is a photographer who lives in Newtown. She was not planning to be with Mills that day, but had considered taking pictures of the shooting to document history. However, she was not emotionally able to handle the tragedy as it was unfolding.
While she is able to cover events related to the attack five years later, she remembers the tragedy hitting too close to home.
“I was not comfortable covering certain things (involving the shooting) at the beginning,” Babyak said. “I am covering the mass for the anniversary this year, but it’s just for the church. I felt as a photographer I should document it, but it made me very uncomfortable so I didn’t do a lot.”
It took some time for the public to find out what happened that day, which greatly worried Babyak, whose son was a junior at a nearby high school at the time of the shooting.
“It was crazy, not knowing what was going on was probably the worst part of it all. I didn’t have anybody in Sandy Hook, my son went to the high school about a mile through the woods. It was scary having my son, who was a junior at the time, in lockdown and it was scary not knowing if… all the reports were accurate. We really didn’t know if there was another shooter,” Babyak said.
Mills, like many people in the United States, has to ask herself tough questions when it comes to such tragic events, like if she has become desensitized to gun violence or how well people affected have recovered since that day.
“I think some have recovered and some haven’t. One of the big things is how people feel about guns… I think the town is doing the best they can… It’s become common. It’s not a gut-wrenching reaction that I have for the first three or four, (I find myself asking) ‘have I become numb to these horrific acts?’” Mills said.
Despite that sentiment, Mills hopes the town is able to move forward in the future, for the sake of the children who bore the brunt of trauma from that day.
“I think of the children who survived, like our friend’s daughter. Will she ever have a normal life? She still can’t handle fireworks… she should have been a happy little girl,” said Mills.
In the weeks after the shooting, she was not happy with the attention brought to her town. When someone found out she was from Newtown while out shopping, Babyak “…felt uncomfortable because you just wanted to be in Newtown with people who could support you rather than onlookers… you kind of just wanted to sit at home.”
More than anything, what the town wants to do is to create lasting change from the infamous day and create positive and lasting influence in preventing mass shootings like this from ever happening again.
This is one of several ways that the town itself is trying to honor the children and adults from that day: never forgetting, but making sure it does not shroud the event in painful feelings.
The parents, the charities, the Newtown Board of Education and the Newtown residents still struggle to move forward from the event, but know that the only way to move past tragedy is to give as much positive impact to the world as they can.
“We don’t define love. Love could mean different things to different people… what we teach is how to have healthy relationships, deep meaningful relationships,” Lewis said.
“We also have and amazing group of almost 3,000 Promise Leaders, who help us bring our programs into school and communities around the country, help advocate for change and support sensible policy where they live,” Barden said.
Pristine wrapping paper rolls, funny singing and dancing elves, Santa Claus blow-up lawn decorations, all displayed on shelves in your local department stores … and all of this has been up since the day after Halloween.
It seems like each year we get into the Christmas spirit earlier and earlier. That’s right, the Christmas season is upon us once again and for most Americans it’s time to find the perfect gifts for friends and family. American spending during the Christmas season has continued to increase for the past ten years, according to recent data.
Since 2008, retail spending in the Christmas season has increased from $501.50 billion to $655.80 billion. Spending in 2017 is projected to rise 3 to 4 percent with overall sales ranging from $678.80 billion to $682 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.
The commercialization of Christmas is nothing new, but the continued increase in sales has left many wondering if we’ve gone too far. Most Connecticut residents say they certainly think the holiday has become too commercialized. In fact, 72 percent of local residents said they felt this way out of 95 respondents in an online survey conducted by HQ Press.
Brian Jones, a Quinnipiac marketing professor, 62, says that from a marketing and business standpoint, Christmas is not what it used to be. Religion is never even mentioned in advertisements anymore.
“It’s gone,” Jones said. “I’m not a religious person, but I think the religion has kind of just disappeared out of Christmas. It’s all about the presents now. This isn’t surprising or new, I mean everybody’s been complaining for a long time about the ‘commercialization’ of Christmas.”
Rev. Jordan Leneghan, executive director of religious life at Quinnipiac University, says that on a religious level, the holiday has definitely become too commercialized.
“For me as a member of the clergy and person of faith the issue becomes how the language and the symbols are appropriated or I would say perhaps, better put, misappropriated for just (a sort of way) to advance this commercial engagement,” Leneghan said.
He provided an example of a recent article he read in The New York Times about a grocery store in England advertising an advent calendar with a manger scene, but instead of baby Jesus, there was a sausage.
“There were a lot of people on Twitter and social media that were objecting,” Leneghan said. “(They said) ‘Why can you appropriate Christmas symbols this way and get away with it, but with other religious communities there would be hell to pay?’… So that’s my biggest issue with the commercialization of Christmas, it’s one thing with ‘happy holidays,’ you’ve got a piece of green with a bulb hanging off of it, or red candles, but it’s when you start appropriating actual religious symbols I think it’s problematic.”
Quinnipiac student Emma Robertson shopping for friends and family at the Quinnipiac bookstore. Photo by Lindsay Pytel.
Quinnipiac student Emma Robertson was one of the 95 respondents of the HQ Press survey, and one of the 72 percent who believe Christmas has become too fixated on commercialization.
“I think that Christmas is definitely commercialized in almost every way,” Robertson said. “Obviously it began as a religious holiday…but today it has completely changed from its original purpose. It seems like today, it’s all about presents – what you’re going to buy or what you’re going to get. It’s all about money.”
Robertson says she believes it’s due to the over-exposure of gifts displayed in advertisements.
“I think the best example of this is commercials on TV,” she said. “All you see after Thanksgiving is toy ads and clothing ads and they imply that the holiday season is all about giving material things.”
A P.C. Richard & Son advertisement from this past Thanksgiving in the Meriden Record Journal. Photo by Lindsay Pytel.
In the survey conducted by HQ Press, most respondents said that they think they will spend either more than $300 (35 percent) or $101 to $200 (32 percent) on Christmas gifts in 2017.
The Christmas season seems to start before Thanksgiving has even begun. In fact, some stores offer deals on Thursday night to gear up for Christmas. Stores began doing this a few years ago most likely to stay face with competitors. However, now a lot of stores advertise the fact that they don’t open on Thanksgiving in an effort to honor the traditions and family values that Fontanez mentioned before. Some of those stores for this year included T.J. Maxx, Nordstrom, Ikea, P.C. Richard and Son and more, according to data collected by bestblackfriday.com.
Jones says he feels that this increase in spending will never stop and he’s seen a shift in the way we celebrate Christmas.
“It’s not like ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ anymore, it’s not like it’s ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ anymore. It’s now about the presents and the marketing, you know Black Friday and getting a deal and shopping,” Jones said. “I’m one of these fatalists that believes that some of these trends are irreversible…I don’t think it’s going to better anytime soon…We’re on a treadmill we can’t get off.”
He says he and his wife have different philosophies of Christmas, where he goes and asks relatives what they want, but she likes to give them something meaningful.
“My wife hates that because I’m falling victim to this commercialization of Christmas,” Jones said. “I think the way to make these people happy is getting the present they want. Maybe that’s a little bit the marketer in me, study your market’s needs and then satisfy them. If she had her way, she wouldn’t ask anybody what they want for Christmas…For years she gave our relatives cookies for Christmas that she baked herself. And I thought ‘They’re gonna think we’re cheap,’ but really she’s right, I’m wrong, because she’s giving of her time, giving a little piece of herself, she’s baking something from scratch and sending it to them.”
Less than 30 percent of survey respondents said that Christmas hasn’t become too commercialized, however.
Francesca Fontanez shops for Christmas decorations and presents to make her dorm at the University of New Haven feel more festive. Photo courtesy of Francesca Fontanez.
“I think Christmas is about so much more than commercialization,” University of New Haven student Francesca Fontanez said. “Coming home and being with friends and family, partaking in traditions and spreading kindness are all still held at such a high standard – at least in my experience.”
Rev. Matthew Gworek of Our First Lady of Mount Carmel Church and Catholic Chaplain at Quinnipiac University, 29, says that he thinks that the commercialization of Christmas could be a good thing.
“It has become very easy to take this commercialization and spending and hold it up as the antithesis of the real meaning of Christmas,” Gworek said. “But to be honest, I’m not sure if that is entirely fair either. While the commercial aspects of the season can certainly be excessive at times and have played a role in distracting some people from a religious understanding of what Christmas is, the ways in which we do things and spend our money can be a beautiful reminder to us of the fact that this time of year is, and needs to be, different. The increases in spending are often intimately connected to increases in giving and a more charitable focus in people overall.”
Gworek’s church, Our First Lady of Mount Carmel in Hamden. Photo by Lindsay Pytel.
Christmas, of course, on a religious level is the celebration of Jesus’ birth. Across the generations, however, there has been an increase in those who consider themselves as “unaffiliated.”
According to Public Religion Research Institute, among those who consider themselves “unaffiliated” are 38 percent of people ages 18 to 29, 26 percent of people ages 30 to 49, 18 percent of people ages 50 to 64 and 12 percent of people ages 65 and up. This raises the question as to if the increase in lack of faith is the reason for a rise in commercialization.
Rev. Paul Fleck of Hamden Plains United Methodist Church, 47, thinks all holidays can be considered commercial, but not at any greater level now than in years previous. He also says it isn’t the reason society as a whole has become less religious.
“There are a lot of, plenty of false idols of the culture that draw us away from what I think truly gives our life meaning and I think that happens during pretty much any season,” Fleck said. “Certainly there are false idols of patriotism during July 4 that draw us away from our true allegiance to God. There are false idols of trying to out scare each other during Halloween that draw us away from the true meaning of All Hollow’s Eve and All Saint’s Day that follows… I don’t know that commercialization has done that nearly as much as the busyness of our lives has drawn us away from church.”
While society may be heading more towards being unaffiliated, Fleck and Leneghan both say at Christmastime attendance in church skyrockets. Leneghan says he thinks at a parish he helps with the number of people nearly double and sometimes that can be overwhelming.
“Sometimes I dread Christmas,” Leneghan said. “You know, it’s packed with all of these people and they only come for certain things and they take off and for the rest of us what it means to be in a religion is to be part of the ongoing faith community and so that’s something you just can’t put on once a year for an hour… I also kind of question, ‘What are you really doing here?’ ‘What do you get out of (it)?’ ‘What’s the point in coming for one hour, once a year?’”
He answered his own questions saying he thinks it’s because of the fact that Christmas kind of offers a “no strings attached” policy.
“I understand, in some ways Christmas is easier for people than Easter,” Leneghan said. “Easter still makes some claims because Easter is like ‘adult Jesus’ whereas Christmas is ‘baby Jesus’ so it’s all about presents. So there’s not a lot of existential claims as Christmas as a holy day makes on you, apart from Christmas as a holiday.”
Rev. Matthew Gworek of Our First Lady of Mount Carmel in Hamden and Quinnipiac University Catholic Chaplain. Photo by Lindsay Pytel.
In the survey conducted by HQ Press, however, the respondents were split pretty evenly on yes or no in regards to whether or not they were going to attend a Christmas service this year (41 percent “yes,” 44 percent “no,” 10 percent “maybe”).
Gworek agrees with Leneghan saying that it’s not ideal for people to only come to church during the Christmas season. However, he feels that even just coming the one day can leave a lasting impression.
“That spirit is something we see this time of year in churches that fill up in a wonderful way on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day like almost no other day of the year,” Gworek said. “I don’t think that’s an accident. Instead, I would say it’s a reality that expresses how, deep down, people understand that there’s something special about this day, and that something special leads them to have at least some kind of desire to set foot in a church.”
