The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

My Turn

My Turn: Water Dept. always available in emergencies

By Ruth Ann Hendrickson

The Water Department has a system in place to serve you if you have need for immediate help. We do not have enough staff to personally answer the phone 24 hours a day, but we do have personnel who are assigned to be “on call.” If you have a leaking water meter or some other water leak that needs immediate attention, do not hesitate to call the Water Department at 781-259-2669 and select option #1 – “Emergency.” This will allow you to contact the on-call person who can arrange for quick resolution of your problem.

Ruth Ann Hendrickson is a member of the Lincoln Water Commission.

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Lincoln Garden Club honors front-line workers

By Jane Herlacher

The Lincoln Garden Club recently honored the town’s front-line essential workers with holiday flowers. For the club’s December Zoom program a floral designer created arrangements which were later picked up at her Chelmsford home and delivered to four town departments and the post office. All the staff members have been on duty on site full time since the beginning of the pandemic. We are grateful for their continued service during unknown and changing times since last winter. Many, many thanks to every one of them.

Jane Herlacher is a member of the Lincoln Garden Club.

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”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Thank-you to Jackie Lenth

By the Town Clerk office staff

The Town Clerk’s Office wishes to honor the work of Jackie Lenth, who donated protection sleeves for our election plexiglass screens. As Covid-19 rendered the use of the screens necessary, protection sleeves ensure that they will not be damaged in storage. Another Lincoln volunteer, Tricia Deck, donated the fleece for each of the sleeves. Her donation of the fabric is greatly appreciated, especially because of all the fun and bright patterns! Jackie hand-sewed 13 protection sleeves which otherwise would have been priced at $80 each.

Jackie Lenth with some of the screen sleeves she made for the Town Clerk’s office.

Using salamander, Boston Celtics, and other festive patterns, Jackie also worked to incorporate the Lincoln spirit into each of the sleeves. We appreciate Jackie’s craftsmanship and her dedication to the office and the town! Jackie also donated a great number of hours at the election, working alongside over 50 other terrific volunteers including her husband.

Thank you for your donation, Jackie!

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Lincoln phone book postponed due to pandemic

By David Levington

The Lincoln Public Library is a treasured resource that has been especially important to many town residents during these past ten months as we’ve all weathered the pandemic together. Our wonderful library staff has truly risen to the challenge to provide much-needed services and outreach activities to help us stay well, safe, and entertained: curbside book pickup for all… expanded book groups and Zoom discussions supplemented with related films… speakers and special programs for all ages via Zoom… and access, by appointment, to the Archives Room and personal browsing. We all thank them heartily for their creative ideas in helping us through this difficult time and appreciate their hard work behind the scenes to provide these opportunities.

The Friends of the Lincoln Library (FOLL) is a nonprofit group that raises funds to augment Library items and activities not included in the town budget. One important and visible project is the Lincoln Telephone Directory, which we publish every two years and distribute to every household. It’s a valuable resource to Town residents as well as for our many sponsors and has provided a major source of funds for the Library from fees paid by our advertisers. This year, the FOLL board has reluctantly decided to postpone the directory for now as we await safer, healthy, and economically more stable times before gathering data and soliciting advertisers. We ask our readers to hold onto their 2019 issues and continue to patronize our advertisers. The directory will remain a valuable resource, just not quite as up to date.

We thank everyone who supports our library — patrons, supporters, business sponsors, staff, and volunteers — and wish you all happy and healthy holidays and new year!

Levington is president of the Friends of the Lincoln Library.

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: New Harriet Todd Scholarship announced

Editor’s note: Harriet Todd, who served the community in many capacities including as a Selectman   from 1989-1994, died in 2018.

By Carolyn Caswell Dwyer, Nancy Marshall, and Barbara Slayter

The Lincoln Scholarship Committee (LSC) is delighted to announce the establishment of the Harriet Backus Todd Scholarship in honor of Harriet Todd, longtime resident of Lincoln and widely known by members of this community for her civic engagement and her extraordinary generosity of both time and resources to community institutions and local government.

The first scholarship will be awarded for the academic year 2021-2022 for study at post-secondary institutions or certificate training programs. Its purpose is to encourage students in pursuing studies and/or training consistent with Harriet Todd’s lifetime of devotion to public service and volunteerism, demonstrating both commitment and integrity to a broad range of civic concerns.

In 2019, Harriet Todd made a generous bequest to the town. The Board of Selectmen determined that a portion ($225,000) of that bequest should be designated for a scholarship in Harriet’s name with the intent of sustaining the endowment long term. The BOS charged the LSC with developing the terms of the scholarship and administering the application procedures and the selection of the recipients. Throughout the spring and summer, the LSC worked on refining the terms of the scholarship fund. The BOS formally approved these terms on September 21, 2020.

Rob Todd, Harriet’s husband, noted, “My family and I are impressed with the efforts of the Lincoln Scholarship Committee to bring to fruition an appropriate use of a portion of Harriet’s bequest to the Town. She would be pleased with this lasting contribution to her community, and her family is certainly proud.”

Two scholarships of $5,000 each will be given annually, one for a new and one for a continuing student. Students will be eligible to apply who:

  • Complete a minimum of grades 5–8 on the Lincoln or Hanscom campuses, and
  • Who are Town of Lincoln residents, or
  • Who are resident on the Hanscom Air Force Base, or
  • Who attend Lincoln Public Schools through the METCO Program, or 
  • Who attend Lincoln Public Schools as children of Town of Lincoln employees, and
  • Who graduate from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School or Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School, or other vocational school, and whose tuition is paid for by the Town of

Additional details about the Harriet Todd scholarship will be available on the town website in January when the application process for the Codman Scholarships and the Lincoln Community Scholarships for 2021-2022 are posted.

On behalf of the Lincoln Scholarship Committee, the Board of Selectmen, and, indeed the entire town, we offer our deepest gratitude to Harriet Todd and the Todd family for establishing the Harriet Backus Todd Scholarship.

Speaking on behalf of the Board of Selectmen, Jonathan Dwyer said, “This scholarship makes a truly meaningful difference to students in our community. Specifically, it provides financial scholarship opportunities to the 15% of Lincoln’s public school students who live outside the town, in Boston and elsewhere, and are ineligible for our existing resident-restricted scholarships. Also, this scholarship memorializing Harriet Todd is significant to the town as an example of generous service to others. Her gift will help people she never met improve their lives. For all of this, the board is sincerely grateful.”

Dwyer, Marshall, and Slayter are members of the Lincoln Scholarship Committee.

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: School Committee thanks district staff and community

By the Lincoln School Committee

We would like to thank the Lincoln School district faculty, staff, and community members for making personal sacrifices, following safety protocols, and recognizing how each of our actions contributes to the overall health of our community and vitality of our schools.  

Remarkably, the Lincoln Public Schools have been open five days a week during this pandemic fall. We are among a handful of Massachusetts school districts — only 3% — who have been able to do so, and thus far (knock wood and fingers crossed) there is no evidence of in-school transmission of the highly contagious virus. 

Children are learning and playing together in person and remotely in small cohorts. Each child has a school-supplied computer tablet and Wi-Fi. Families have direct contacts for support and those needing special services are receiving them. Faculty are collaborating and creating innovative ways to stimulate learning, creativity, and joy during this time of worry, racial reckoning, and isolation — all with the backdrop of a major school building project.

We are grateful, and not just for good luck. Our children are learning together because of comprehensive and collaborative planning and administration, resilient teaching adaptations and innovations, amped-up technology support, and shared commitment to health and safety protocols including masks, distancing, and hand-washing as well as clean and ventilated buildings, outdoor spaces, and school buses.

As we come to the long weekend break and as infection rates rise across our region and the nation, let us all stay safe and take a moment to give thanks for everyone who has made this fall possible in our schools.

The Lincoln School Committee members are Tara Mitchell, Peter Borden, Trintje Gnazzo, Adam Hogue, and Susan Taylor.

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Congratulations to Rep. Katherine Clark

By Joan Kimball and Barbara Slayter 

The Lincoln Democratic Town Committee congratulates our Congresswoman, Katherine Clark, for her election to the role of assistant speaker, making her the fourth-ranking member in the chamber.

This position makes Katherine Clark the most powerful Congresswoman in state history as well as the second-highest ranking Democratic woman in the history of the House after Nancy Pelosi. Her presence will mark the first time there are two women in the top four positions of the party’s House leadership. Along with Rep. Richard Neal of Springfield, who is chair of the Ways and Means Committee, and Rep.Jim McGovern of Worcester, chair of the House Rules Committee, she will wield considerable power within the House of Representatives.

The Boston Globe quoted Clark saying that “Collective leadership is not about individual ambition, but collective good.”

We Lincoln Democrats appreciate not only the work that she does on our behalf and on behalf of our country, but also her key role in recruiting Democrats to win in the House during the 2018 election. We also appreciate her focus on the looming problems of health care, racial justice, and climate change.

In a letter to us, her constituents, Katherine Clark wrote:

“The challenges facing our country are great, but so are the possibilities. Democrats in Congress are resolute in our commitment to eliminating the virus, aiding families, and recharging our economy in the face of this pandemic. While vitally important, our work cannot end there.

“This is the moment for America to unite together and finally build a nation that fulfills our promise of justice for all. We cannot settle for normal, but must instead expand the parameters of prosperity to ensure everyone has the same opportunities for success.

“As Assistant Speaker, my work will be guided by everyday Americans who have stood up this year to protect and strengthen our nation—from the heroic frontline workers who bravely put the security and health of others before their own, to the record number of Americans who took to the streets this summer and took to the polls this November, who energized our democracy and brought a renewed urgency to our fight for racial, climate, and economic justice.

“The House Democratic majority, in partnership with President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris, will meet this moment of historic challenges and confront it with historic progress.

“With faith in our country and optimism for our future, I am eager to get to work.”

Three cheers for Katherine Clark! We wish her and our country well.

Kimball and Slayter are co-chairs of the Lincoln Democratic Town Committee.

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Thanks for “Turkey Tin” donations

By Tomasina Lucchese and the SVdP team

On behalf of the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry of Lincoln and Weston, we would like to thank all who participated in our Turkey Tin project last week. Together we distributed 120 food baskets filled with all the fixings for a thanksgiving meal, including a grocery store gift card for a turkey.

The only thing more heartwarming than seeing those bountiful baskets lined up was witnessing the varied groups, parishes, clubs, troops, friends, and families who came together to pass the blessings on to our neighbors in need. We are very fortunate to be part of such a generous and thoughtful community.

May you all have a peace-filled and happy Thanksgiving.

SVdP team members Larry Buell, Gretchen Covino, and Karen Salvucci distributing the Turkey Tins.

The SVdP of Lincoln and Weston works with people in need who live, work or go to school in Lincoln or Weston.  We are currently serving people twice a month at the SVdP Food Pantry located behind St Joseph’s Church in Lincoln.  SVdP also offers emergency financial assistance to help with bills, rent, etc. For more information or to make an online donation to support this ministry, please click here.

If you or somebody you know is in need of food or emergency financial help, please reach out at 781-899-2611 x4 or svdplincolnweston@gmail.com. This is a challenging time for many and although it can be difficult to ask for help, we are here to support. Everything is kept completely confidential.

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Thanks to Town Clerk Valerie Fox

By Joan Kimball, Barbara Slayter, and Stephen Binder

We of the Lincoln Democratic and Republican Town Committees want to thank Town Clerk Valerie Fox for all her work to make the elections run smoothly this year. These two fall elections were particularly challenging with Covid-19.

Valerie and her staff put a great deal of thought into planning for voting by mail, the positioning of the drop box, and enabling us to vote safely, whether it be early, or by mail, or on the election days. We appreciate her notifications to all of us voters about timing and alternative ways to vote.

Kimball and Slayter are co-chairs of the Lincoln Democratic Town Committee, Binder is writing on behalf of the Lincoln Republican Town Committee.

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: It takes a village

By Sara Mattes

On Saturday, Sept. 19, the Lincoln Historical Society was on the move with its “Book Brigade.” Over 60 cartons of books (1,700 lbs. at last calculation) were moved from the basement of Bemis Hall for temporary storage elsewhere while Bemis Hall is being cleaned and made rodent-free.

Young and not-so-young accomplished the move in matter of hours. Critical to the success were the young, strong backs and good spirits of Lukas Lenkutis and Peter Covino.

Sara Mattes
Lincoln Historical Society

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Left to right: Jim Cunningham, Craig Donaldson, Gus Brown, Don Hafner, Chris Taylor, and Lukas Kenkutis.