Grantwriting is critical to Island nonprofits, but many lack the skills to research and identify the right grants. Those organizations with skilled grantwriters still may find their resources stretched going to Boston, the closest place to house a comprehensive database of grants — the closest, that is, until now.

The Martha’s Vineyard Donors Collaborative has funded the installation of a new Grant Resource Center at the Oak Bluffs Public Library. This database will be available free at the library to all Island nonprofits.

“Chickens! Are you ready?”

Upstairs at the Vineyard Playhouse on Tuesday, artistic director M.J. Bruder Munafo was calling two actors for their cue.

Inauguration Day

A man

Stood in the sunlight

And spoke

And the crowd listened

and heard him.

He spoke of hope

and of hard things and

he spoke of darkness

and as he spoke the

multitude heard him.

The man stood in

the sunlight and spoke

of darkness and

those who had lived

through the darkness

I went to the inauguration thank s to my college friend, David Skaggs, a former Colorado congressman, now the chairman of the board of the newly established Office of Congressional Ethics. From Republicans who had other things to do, David accumulated enough tickets to invite not only his own family but a group of Wesleyan friends as well. Though I dislike crowds to the point where I leave that cannot-be-named-in-this-newspaper stadium in the Bronx at the end of the seventh inning, I knew I was being summoned by history.

Editor’s Note: The following letter was sent to Paul Diodati, director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. The letter was also signed by Chuck Hodgkinson, Emmett Carroll, Jennifer Clark, Jonathan Mayhew, Virginia Jones and Tom Osmers.

Regarding the request for consideration of a tending requirement on bottom tending or sink gill nets in Massachusetts state waters: All nets must come in with the boat and not be left at sea when the boat is at port.

CONNECTING FACTS

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

Last week after the snowfall, I went walking. I always try to beat the plows and the sanders, and for awhile I did. The only sounds were the squeaking snow beneath my boots and the wind soughing. It was just about dusk and a bird or two was uttering a goodnight chirp before tucking its head under its wing. The snow along West Tisbury’s Music street, gleaming under occasional street lights, seemed to me like that “ribbon of moonlight” in the Alfred Noyes’ poem The Highwayman.

Place Holders

From Gazette editions of February, 1959:

On Ice

For a Good Cause

The Community Preservation Act has been a fact of Island life for a relatively short period of time — it was only three years ago that all six towns had finally signed on to participate in the benefits of the state legislation, which matches a three per cent property tax surcharge with state money. This year the match has dropped below one hundred per cent, so suddenly the funds are even more precious. Community Preservation Act money may be used for open space, historic preservation and affordable housing.