In the weeks following the devastating earthquake in southwestern China, a senior at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School is raising money to help the victims.

Laura Kimball of Oak Bluffs, who herself was born in China, has spent the last week collecting money and plans to do it through Memorial Day weekend.

Five or six years ago Kristin Henriksen started doing lectures on Martha’s Vineyard about the value of planting Island native plants.

“And afterwards,” she recalled yesterday, “people would come up to me and ask where they could get them. And I had to say I didn’t know.”

And so in 2006, she opened a nursery called Going Native, in Vineyard Haven. And when she talks native, she means local. Not native to North America, not native to New England, but Island native genotypes — plants from seeds collected here.

Restoring the Public Trust

The stripping of protected Vineyard conservation land to provide native plants for a private estate on the North Shore in West Tisbury has thrust the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation — the venerable land trust founded by the late longtime editor of this newspaper who campaigned fearlessly for the preservation of the Vineyard environment — uncomfortably into the public eye.

KEEP EDUCATION STRONG

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

I want the voters who will be voting on the override on May 28 in Oak Bluffs to know how strongly I oppose placing the town’s budget problems on just the schools. With less than 40 per cent of the town’s budget, the schools in Oak Bluffs are being asked to fund 100 per cent of the budget override. This is wrong. This is a town problem, not just a school problem.

Violating Its Charter

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

My family and I are at a loss to understand the reasons why the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation board of directors permitted the strip-mining of trees, plants, and grasses from Foundation properties, as described and photographed in the Vineyard Gazette of May 16. The properties involved, furthermore, are also designated as priority habitats by the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Therefore, any restoring of these properties should be done only if in accord with the Endangered Species Act.

Editor’s Note: Memorial Day is a day of flags and remembrance established after the Civil War, where some 620,000 men died, more than in any other American war in history. The battle at Gettysburg is probably one of the most poignant symbols of that war.

Last week Gazette readers saw and read about the removal of trees and sod from properties on the Island, two of which are under the stewardship of Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation.

Choral Concert

The choir of First-Plymouth Church, UCC of Lincoln, Neb., under the direction of Dr. John C. Cummins, will present a 30-minute concert on Friday, June 6 at noon at Trinity United Methodist Church in Oak Bluffs.

The concert will include music by Vierne, Viadana, Mendelssohn and Brahms. Two classic spiritual arrangements by William Dawson will be sung. All are welcome to attend. A free will offering is requested. More information is available by calling 508-645-3100.

They are welded, varnished and stitched together, reinforcing their defenses and trying to prepare for the surge of shoppers who will soon be overrunning their precious stalls.

Island artists are readying for the 10th annual Memorial Day Artisans Festival to be held at the Grange Hall May 24 and 25 from 10 to 4 p.m.

Andrea Rogers of Oak Bluffs launched the festival and continues to act as its supervisor and manager.

As she was updated on preparations for the 30th annual Tisbury town picnic on Memorial Day, to be held Monday from noon to 4 p.m. on 23 acres overlooking Lake Tashmoo, Isabel West thought about things.

“It’s been a pretty nifty event,” she said from her room at Long Hill assisted living in Edgartown where she now lives.

Mrs. West, who founded the town picnic, celebrated her own 96th birthday last Saturday, and the celebration continues on Memorial Day, where she will be guest of honor at the picnic.