Second Chance: providing hope for 25 years
For 25 years, the purple house at 1933 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Newtown, has welcomed the underserved of Sarasota and surrounding areas. Hungry citizens in crisis know they can find food, personal care items and new-baby supplies there.
Most important, these individuals find hope. No one wants to wait in line for a handout, so April Glasco, founder and CEO of Second Chance Last Opportunity, offers Life Skills Training to anyone who wants to turn their life around. Formerly delivered in person, these lessons are now available via Zoom.
Second Chance Last Opportunity never intended to serve as a food pantry, but with COVID-19 and the resulting job losses, Glasco and her army of volunteers stepped up to provide food distributions every Wednesday and Friday.
As the only emergency center in Newtown, Second Chance and Glasco provide the food, wisdom and much-needed hope to a growing population that has fallen on hard times.
Congratulations, April Glasco. We salute you. Here’s to at least 25 more years!
Amy Barnes, Lucy Hedrick, Jennifer Joseph, Kay Ross, Arlene Skversky, Nina Tortelli, Sarasota
Floridians could face energy crisis
Floridians need to pay attention to California’s energy woes during the recent West Coast heat wave.
As a former Californian, I know that 20 years ago that state had a robust energy infrastructure based on natural gas and nuclear power. Since that time, progressive leaders there went to the extreme in pushing “green energy.”
More: How to send a letter to the editor
Much of the preexisting generating capacity was dismantled or mothballed. To nobody’s surprise, a heavy reliance on windmills and solar panels has proven inadequate in crunch time.
Now, California has rolling blackouts and the liberal Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, is pleading with residents to raise their thermostat settings. Florida needs to avoid this grim scenario.
About 350,000 people move to Florida each year, almost 1,000 a day. As this trend continues or accelerates, our energy needs will soar. This is not the time for the Green New Deal being promoted by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democratic extremists.
Besides killing thousands of energy industry jobs, it could doom Florida’s energy needs to an uncertain future. As in California, we could face sky-high energy bills and $4-a-gallon gasoline.
In his climate plan, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden refers to the Green New Deal as a “crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges.”
The best way for Floridians to avoid California-like energy chaos is to vote for President Donald Trump.
Roger Bonke, Lakewood Ranch
Don’t send stimulus checks to retirees
As I await the possibility of receiving a second stimulus check from the government, it causes me to wonder, why did I get the first one?
Like many retired seniors in Sarasota, my wife and I live on Social Security and pension checks.
Did the stimulus check motivate us to shop in a store, go to a movie, eat out or even fly to visit our kids? The answer to those questions is “no.”
None of the retired friends I spoke with felt the stimulus check was necessary for us retirees. Is it nice to get free money? Sure, but at what cost?
The people who need government assistance are those who have been affected by this pandemic through job losses. I think the government should focus on helping those who lost a job or had their work hours reduced.
We must be careful about giving money to industries or businesses that may not survive in our new business environment.
About 61 million people collect Social Security benefits in the U.S. At $1,200 per retiree, that’s about $73 billion the country could save. The money could be used to create jobs fixing rusting bridges, building new roads, improving our infrastructure and training people to work in a new post-pandemic economy.
Joel Aronchick, Sarasota
Buchanan emphasizes bipartisan record
The lead story in the Oct. 11 Herald-Tribune was about Gov. Ron DeSantis’ efforts to support President Donald Trump’s reelection: As Florida Republican Party Chairman Joe Gruters said, “If we can’t win Florida, the election is lost.”
On the back page of that section was a full page, color advertisement by Republican U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, of Longboat Key.
On close review, Buchanan’s ad was missing one word and emphasized another. The missing word? “Republican.” The emphasized word? “Bipartisan”!
While I don’t agree with all of Buchanan’s positions, I have to respect his intelligence – no sense going down with the sinking ship “Trump.”
Jim Loudon, Sarasota