Foundations for the new Martha’s Vineyard Hospital won’t be poured until spring, but already the hospital has big plans for the rooftops.

This week the hospital received notice from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the state’s development agency for renewable energy and the innovation economy, that the hospital will receive a $198,000 design and construction grant for solar electric panels atop the new building.

They held the anchovies but not much else as several hundred hungry Vineyarders sold out the seventh annual Pizza Night at the Tisbury School last Friday night to benefit the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital.

A little more than an hour into the two-hour event, the last of more than 100 pizzas prepared by school teachers and staff had been munched or ordered by students, family and hospital well-wishers. The event has become a fall institution on the Island, according to senorita Oly Wirtz, school Spanish teacher and multilingual hostess at the door.

JUNE MANNING

508-645-2574

(lthslnks@gis.net)

November is American Indian Heritage Month and the Aquinnah Public Library has a stellar collection of Native American books. Please stop by and look through the vast collection for your reading pleasure. This is a collection that has been built upon over the past two decades, first by Roxane Ackerman and growing significantly with each new library director. Jennifer Christy, her staff, and library trustees Nancy Delaney, Betty Joslow, and Martha Vanderhoop have further expanded the collection.

MARGARET KNIGHT

508-627-8894

(margaret02539@yahoo.com)

RICK HERRICK

508-693-8065

(herricklr@verizon.net)

Sitting in the standby line in Woods Hole can be a nail-biting experience. That tension eases somewhat when the Island Home comes into view with its increased car-carrying capacity. Vineyarders take pride in the newest addition to the Steamship Authority’s fleet of boats.

Next time you travel on the Island Home, visit the purser’s office on the top deck. Right across from it there’s a plaque on the wall that recognizes members of the Port Council.

HOLLY NADLER

508-693-3880

(sunporch@vineyard.net)

How many of us are sensitive about being washashores? It may be a bit of a taboo to talk about it because most of us act as if we couldn’t give a flying Fig Newton. So we don’t have whaling captains in our ancestry, who cares? Those were a bunch of uptight and bossy dudes; who needs them?

NANCY GARDELLA

508-693-3308

(vhavenvgazette@yahoo.com)

I know we are all used to the roving gangs of turkeys passing through our yards. I say gangs, not flocks, because they can be very proprietary. But my dogs went crazy barking the other day. I thought they should be used to the turks by now. I looked out the window and saw a beautiful, big, and obviously well-kept rooster waiting for food. He walked up my front steps and would have rung the bell if he could reach it.

Book Fair

The Tisbury School library will host a scholastic book fair Nov. 26 through 29, a fun-filled book sale and literacy event geared to excite children about reading and learning.

Parents, children, teachers and the entire community are invited to the Book Fair Blizzard, the name of the fair.

This annual event gives students, teachers, parents, and grandparents an opportunity to add to their own libraries, and to augment the libraries of others.

Gifts for Peace

The annual PeaceCraft Holiday Gift Shop opens Friday, Nov. 23 at the Tisbury Market and Deli on Main street in Vineyard Haven. Distinctive goods and holiday crafts will be available Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Fish Farm for Haiti Project sponors PeaceCraft to provide support to self-help artisan groups around the world. The shop will be open until the day before Christmas. For more information or to volunteer, call Meg at 508-939-9094.

JOHN S. ALLEY

508-693-2950

(alleys@vineyard.net) 

Old Jack Frost paid us a brief visit last Saturday and Sunday nights with temperatures in some places dipping into the low twenties. He may return again this weekend with a few more calling cards. The leaves, what was left of them from the storm, peaked earlier this week and after last Sunday’s frost are falling to the ground by the thousands each day.