The Vineyard Nursing Association has received a $2,800 grant from Our Island Club for its professional education program. Currently, funds from that program are helping Samantha Cron, LPN, become a registered nurse.

Island resident Brie Barstow has opened a new business, Sleep Tight Mattress and Sanitizing Systems, offering mattress cleaning and sanitizing.

Her company offers free in-home allergen and mattress contamination tests that take only a few minutes to perform, as well as an all-natural, chemical free, dry treatment using UV-C (germicidal) light safe for treating all types of mattresses.

Allergy sufferers may find a new source of relief in this home treatment, she says.

On Saturday afternoon while many Islanders were outside enjoying the warm air on a bright spring day, nine people sat inside the West Tisbury fire station and talked about storm clouds and how they could help national forecasters better predict the weather and possibly help save lives and property. It was a training session for the National Weather Service SKYWARN program.

Our Island Club, the consumer savings program that also raises money for local organizations, has distributed its annual donations, more than $43,000.

Included in the distribution are scholarships to the Vineyard Nursing Association, Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School vocational programs and the Permanent Endowment Fund. It also donated $1,500 to support the SafeRides program. A complete list of the 180+ organizations is posted on the Web site ourislandclub.com.

Who’s Over the Hill?

Little League

Richie Bartlett of the Orioles hit a grand slam during Saturday’s game against the Reds, but the Orioles were nonetheless outslugged 11-9.

Ben Peters threw three scoreless innings for the Marlins in his pitching debut, helping his team to a 14-3 victory over the Rays. The Rays came back in their next game, however, winning 16-12 against the Orioles. Andrew Morehead and Keaton Aliberti of the Rays had seven strikeouts between them.

The Twins remain undefeated after three games.

Expect the fields at the regional high school to be busy this week, with 10 home games being played between now and next Thursday.

It’s a cold and rainy spring day on the Island as AmeriCorps National Community Civilian Corps (NCCC) team Raven One breaks for lunch around a table at the Farm Institute in Katama. Dressed in cargo pants, black work boots and gray sweatshirts bearing the AmeriCorps logo, these nine young corps members have been on the Island for about two weeks working on projects to support a variety of local nonprofit organizations.

It’s hard to imagine warm summer nights on these cold spring days, but they’re coming.

And in less than a month, the new collegiate baseball team, the Martha’s Vineyard Sharks, will take to the field at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.

To warm up the Vineyard crowd, the Sharks will have a fundraiser dinner for the field and Vineyard baseball on Saturday at Sharky’s Cantina in Edgartown with former Red Sox player Bill Buckner. The dinner starts at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $45.

Just what does a duck see when peering down from the sky at a decoy floating on the water? Sometimes it sees, to its detriment, a friend to nestle down with. Other times it perceives the shoddy workmanship; the chipping paint, overlarge eyes or lilt of tail far removed from the likes of its brethren. The duck in this case keeps right on flying.

And then, perhaps just once in many, many decades, there is a vision floating out there on the water. A vision of a decoy so perfect and unique that the wild duck reaches deep into its feathers and pulls out $22,425.