Neighbors for Neighbors was once an idea but now is a reality. In the early stages of planning to care for our community, the Chilmark Board of Health expanded on the outreach programs already in place. Jan Buhrman, Delilah Meegan, Allison Flanders and Don Leopold are sharing the helm of this endeavor.

Services include a hotline for food and prescription pick-ups, video or phone check-ins, connections to Island social services, trash pick up, wood chopping and more. Email chilmarkneighbors@gmail.com for more details.

An emergency stay-at-home order was issued for the town of Chilmark on March 24 and is scheduled to expire on April 7 unless it is extended. Many of you are doing a truly fine job of remaining at your residences as much as possible. I commend you for your diligence during this time of crisis. I implore everyone to please follow the rules — no hugging friends at the post office, hopping into a friends vehicle to take a drive or having picnics at the beach. Go out only for essentials and keep your distance from anyone you might see along the way.

I’d like to give a shout-out to Ann Wallace who has been an extra mother of sorts. You can never have too many kind people in your life and she’s one that has been steadfast in her support of me and my family. Her periodic check-ins and kind words are truly uplifting and make me feel lucky to know her.

This week I’m also thankful for Shelley Scheuer, Janet Weidner, Jessica Benjamin, Lori Keefe, Sarah Nixon and Hillary Noyes-Keene, among others, who have purposely reached out. I also had the pleasure of a text connect with Jess Miller. She, too, is a delight and has her hands full with board of health stuff in West Tisbury. Send a little love her way if you find a moment.

We had a sighting of Mike Hamilton a few days ago. Many of you met him last summer as he fished out of Menemsha on his big, blue, steel-hulled Sinful. He ran a boat from Florida to Gloucester and made a pit-stop in Menemsha to say hello and refuel. He’d been well isolated on a boat all the way up the coast, but was respectful and conversed from afar.

I heard from Russell Cleary just the other day. He and Kathy have been sticking close to home which lends some time to wandering down Memory Lane. One story brought out a shared connection with Bob Flanders (my kids great-great uncle) and Kathy’s father who met during the ’97 Derby. Details of this connection were inserted by Hollis Smith and go something like this: “Bob was my mother’s older brother. He told me one time a rusty bull rake was a sign of a lazy man. I bought a stainless rake from Ron Rib. We got a laugh out of that for years! I hunted with Bob, Dan, Herb, Emmett and Albert Fischer in Pittsburgh for several years.”

Amidst this darkened world a new little ray of sunshine shares its light at the Allen Farm. Florence Scout Allen-Posin was born in the early morning hours of March 17 to Kaila and Ned. Proudly bearing a family name from Kaila’s side, this joyful antidote to the global state of fear and anxiety (her mother’s words which I love) will surely have many nicknames, but for now is being called Flossie by big sister Tavi and Scout by big brother Arlo. Welcome, little one. We are happy to have you among us.