More than eighty years ago, two Island women knitted six red stockings, filled and distributed them to needy local children, and the Red Stocking Fund was born. Today the fund is still very much a grassroots organization run by volunteers. Every year the Red Stocking Fund provides gifts and warm clothing for 300 to 400 children ages newborn to eighth grade.

Over forty years ago, the Vineyard Gazette fashioned its very first holiday gift guide. An honest-to-goodness mail-order catalogue, the inaugural publication served as a way for Island vendors to advertise special sales and promotions, and connected local goods and services with off-Island consumers leading up to the holiday season. Here we present you with the talents and energies of our Island community in 2016.

Quite suddenly in mid-September, night-time temperatures start to fall, we unpack that feather duvet and a pot of hearty soup simmering on the stove once again is an appealing meal. Yet the pleasure in color, growth, and greenery are perennial and can be enjoyed in various ways, even as the season changes. You can bring the garden indoors as you firmly shut the door to keep the drafts out.

From runway renegades to fashion al fresco, Vineyard designers evolve in style.

How do ideas for a new home or an updated kitchen move from dream to reality? Erin Ryerson goes back to the drawing board with three up-and-coming Island home designers to learn about craft, juggling young families with a budding career, and what it means to work a traditional 9-5 on an Island where seasonal schedules prevail.

Life in the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association (informally called the Camp Ground) is a unique experience, and never more so than on Illumination Night. Each August the event draws thousands of visitors, as residents adorn their cottages with lanterns in a tradition dating back to 1868.

Seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, the small staff at Island Grown Initiative's Thimble Farm — now doing business as Island Grown Farm Hub at Thimble Farm — tends more than 30,000 square feet of greenhouses.

Last summer my husband and I wanted to try a new Island restaurant, but unpredictable work schedules are not conducive to well-planned date nights. It was the middle of the week, albeit in August, and we were just hoping for a quick dinner before a movie. Without time to make a reservation, we took our walk-in chances.

Whether you see the landscapes of the Vineyard every day or dream about them from afar, one thing is certain — the Island is uniquely beautiful and retains a special, ecological character that many other places have lost. This lasting, natural beauty is due in large part to the native plants that have flourished here, evolving in our landscape for thousands of years. But more and more commonly, invasive, nonnative species are threatening to take over, presenting a danger not only to the look and feel of the Island but also to the countless creatures that call it home.

On an unseasonably balmy morning in September, Reade Kontje Milne had just ushered her two kids, Greta and Felix, off to school. Though she was running a little late for work at MacNelly Cohen architects in West Tisbury, she eked out some time to talk over coffee and eggs about her experience as one of the Vineyard’s few female carpenters.