Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day Thursday in Downtown Henderson

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Shamrocks on Breckenridge is just a few days away – come to downtown Henderson on Thursday, Mar. 17 to enjoy food vendors and entertainment to observe St. Patrick’s Day!

Amanda Ellis, chair of the Henderson-Vance Downtown Development Commission, reminds everyone to wear green to add to the festive atmosphere on Breckenridge Street from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The band Purple Admonition is scheduled to perform, as well as a 6:30 show by the Ballet Arts “Cloggers,” Ellis said.

Food trucks from RJ Wings & Things and Big Rob’s Fred Robertson will be on hand, as well as  Ryan Ball’s Kona Ice. Sandra Abbott and Westwood Church will have beverages.

The Arts Council will have cards for attendees to go on a scavenger hunt. Those who complete the card will get a prize.

Participating vendors include:

Participating vendors include:

  • H.A.P.E. & The Gateway Center – Tracy Moseley & Heather Joi Kenney
  • Gang Free, Inc. – Melissa Elliott
  • Turning Point Community Development (Mobile Learning Lab) – Chalis Henderson & Kate Delahanty
  • Vance County Tourism – Pam Hester
  • Vance County Sheriff’s Office – Curtis Brame & Debbie Scott
  • Granville-Vance Public Health – Gerald McNair
  • Perry Memorial Library –
  • Henderson-Vance Crime Stoppers – Frankie Nobles
  • Franklin-Granville-Vance Partnership – Smart Start – Gary Daeke
  • Henderson Family YMCA – Christine Bennerson
  • Henderson-Vance Downtown Development – Tracy Madigan / Amanda Ellis
  • Vance County Arts Council – Alice Sallins
  • Henderson-Vance Parks and Recreation – Kendrick Vann

Cooperative Extension with Wayne Rowland: Nematodes

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Listen live at 100.1 FM / 1450 AM / or on the live stream at WIZS.com at 11:50 a.m. Mon, Tues & Thurs.

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TownTalk: Purr Partners Helps Cats And Kittens Find Furever Homes

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Purr Partners is a local nonprofit rescue group that finds homes for cats. Co-founder Lawanna Johnson said she and her teams of volunteers work tirelessly to care for their wards, whether they come from shelters, from owner surrenders or from hoarding situations.

“Our mission has always been that we would be advocates for cats,” Johnson said. Right now, there are a little over a hundred cats that are in their care, with about 40 available for adoption at any given time.

Volunteers are caring for several feline mamas and their kittens right now, she told fellow cat lover Bill Harris on Monday’s Town Talk. And that is just the tip of the iceberg, Johnson noted, because the dreaded “kitten season” is fast approaching.

Reducing the pet overpopulation problem is also part of Purr Partner’s over-arching goal. Educating pet owners about having their animals spayed or neutered is a critical piece of the problem, she said. While there aren’t that many no-cost or low-cost programs that serve our area, there are several places that offer discounts for having animals – usually dogs and cats – spayed or neutered.

Traditionally, the county animal shelter is where unwanted animals – again, usually dogs and cats – are held until they can be adopted. But Johnson said cats are surrendered much more often and are euthanized at much greater rates than dogs.

Purr Partners uses annual data from the state Department of Agriculture to identify high-kill shelters and then work with those shelters to get cats into the rescue and try to get them adopted.

There simply are not enough homes and not enough places to house all the cats that need to find a safe place to live, she said. They don’t just get cats from shelters, Johnson said. Just one day ago, they took in six cats from the western part of the state that were removed from a hoarding situation. Since July, she said, they have gotten as many as 20 cats at once that were removed from a hoarding situation.

As a rescue organization, Purr Partners also finds itself having to say “no” to additional cats when they are tight on space. “We can’t always help,” she said. “We just don’t have enough space.”

Unaltered female felines can get pregnant every 8-10 weeks, Johnson said. With the average litter producing 4-5 kittens, it’s easy to see how important spaying and neutering becomes in the quest to reduce the unwanted pet population.

“We try to educate people on how to handle the problem,” she explained. All the cats that are adopted through Purr Partners are spayed or neutered.

Cats can make wonderful pets, Johnson said, and they surely have different personalities. Some cats are lovable, stay-in-your-lap kind of pets, while others are aloof and shun interaction with their humans. “I find them endlessly fascinating,” she said.

But Purr Partners works hard to match cat personalities with what prospective adopters are looking for to ensure that the cats find forever homes.

“We don’t adopt kittens under six months into single-cat households,” she said. “If you want a kitten, you need to get two.” Kittens need another cat to teach them manners and for socialization, she said. “There’s a reason kittens are born into litters.”

Visit https://www.purrpartners.org/ to learn more about the organization, email Johnson at purrpartners@yahoo.com and visit their Facebook page to see the cats currently available for adoption.

 

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Spring Ahead Saturday Night – Daylight Savings Begins Sunday!

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Smartphones, computers and other electronic devices don’t need to remember “Spring Ahead, Fall Back” – our devices magically adjust to time changes. Like Saturday night, when Daylight Savings Time officially begins. We’ll “lose” an hour of sleep overnight, but those who enjoy more daylight in their day are entering their favorite time of year.

Sunrise on Sunday Mar. 13 is 7:27 a.m. and sunset is 7:19 p.m. – that’s almost 12 hours of daylight to get more done – from gardening to detailing your car, shooting hoops in the driveway or riding bikes and enjoying a walk in the park – going back outside after dinner for chores or playtime is back on the table, beginning Sunday.

Not everyone loves daylight savings time, but they’ll have to put up with it through the summer and fall.

DST fans have until November to enjoy it – it will be time to “fall back” on Nov. 6.

MAKO Medical Kicks in $10K To Help Fund Vance Ed Foundation Grants For Teachers

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MAKO Medical has donated $10,000 to the Vance County Public School Foundation to support a grant program for funding in 2022-23.  But the North Carolina-based medical lab has taken it one step further and issued a challenge to the community: They will match dollar-for-dollar all future donations from area businesses and individuals up to $10,000.

The grant is called Learning that Extends Actual Performance – or LEAP, for short.

Teachers in Vance County Public Schools can submit project applications beginning Mar. 25. A committee will evaluate the applications and award the grants to recipients at the August teacher Convocation, according to a press statement from VCS Director of Communication and Marketing Aarika Sandlin.

Josh Arant, MAKO Medical’s chief operating officer, said helping classroom teachers is a great way to invest in the community.

“The past two years have been hard on students, teachers and their families,” Arant said in a press statement. “We want to help support our educators and inspire innovation in Vance County. I hope other individuals and companies will join us.”

Five educators received grants in 2021 to support projects aimed at enriching students’ classroom experience, Sandlin stated.

VCS Superintendent Dr. Cindy Bennett praised MAKO for its generosity. “We are so grateful for the financial support and the confidence that MAKO has in the work we are doing in Vance County Schools,” Bennett said.

“Every dollar donated will support the experiences and engaging opportunities our teachers will design and share with our students. MAKO has again demonstrated their amazing support for this community,” she continued.

The foundation will provide an additional $10,000, bringing the total – so far – to $20,000 to fund the grants for next year.

Donations as part of the MAKO Match challenge – with “MAKO Match” in the memo line – can be sent to the following address:

Vance County Schools Public School Foundation

P.O. Box 2956

Henderson, NC 27536

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County Broadband Expansion Possible If Grants Come Through

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The Vance County Board of Commissioners heard a report from the Technology Committee at its Mar. 7 meeting and entered into a memorandum of understanding with CenturyLink to approve authorizing up to $750,000 in funding to expand broadband capacity across the county.

This action is contingent on a grant application by CenturyLink to get money from the NC GREAT grant partnership. GREAT stands for Growing Rural Economies with Access to Technology.

The memorandum of understanding with CenturyLink would create a partnership that would commit the county to provide 10 percent of the overall project cost – up to $750,000 in ARPA funding – to allow for the addition of approximately 110 miles of fiber lines installed in the county that would be available to 2,261 premises across the county.

The Technology Committee was made aware that $380 million is available for the next round of grant funding; applications are being accepted through April 4, 2022. CenturyLink is scheduled to submit an application before this April deadline.

This county’s contribution would come from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and it would only be contributed if CenturyLink’s grant application is accepted, according to information from the commissioners’ agenda.

Local governments are not eligible to apply for GREAT grants, but they may partner with internet service providers that have an interest in expanding coverage. The maximum grant amount per applicant is $4 million and the maximum amount per county is $8 million.

Charter/Spectrum recently received funding from the federal Rural Digital Opportunities Fund (RDOF), which will allow for broadband improvements in parts of the county over the next few years, the agenda information stated.

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New COVID-19 Cases Drop In Vance, Granville

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For the first time in months, Vance and Granville counties COVID-19 percent positive rates have dropped to the “low” level. There have been no new deaths reported in the last few weeks in either county.

Vance reported 17 new cases over the past week, and Granville reported 27, according to the weekly update from Granville Vance Public Health.

Those numbers represent a 3.4 percent positivity rate for Vance County and a 3.0 percent positivity rate in Granville.

No new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the last two weeks from the Granville buildings of the Federal Prison in Butner, NC.

There have been 14,118 cases of COVID-19 in Granville County and 11,783 cases of COVID-19 in Vance County for a total of 25,901 across the health district.

Granville County has documented 111 deaths as a result of COVID-19 and Vance County has a total of 112 deaths for a total of 223 deaths across the health district.

“We have reached a number of milestones in the COVID-19 pandemic as we have rounded out year two and are all collectively hopeful that no more variants of concern are around the corner,” said GVPH Director Lisa Harrison.

As mask restrictions loosen, Harrison said health professionals and others will continue to pay close attention to the level of disease in the population and to make sure the public remains healthy and safe from communicable disease.

“For those in public health, the epidemic curve (in this case, the pandemic curve) shows us a visual picture of what we have been through together,” Harrison said.

 

 

 

Local Phone Scam – First Thing To Do, Hang Up

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Based on information from Vance County Sheriff Curtis Brame, there is a scam rolling in Henderson and Vance County today (Thursday), and it’s pretty vicious.

Please keep in mind that no member of local law enforcement, nor any honest member of law enforcement anywhere, will ever call you to ask you for money that, when paid, will somehow keep you out of jail.

If there is a warrant for your arrest, chances are the Sheriff’s Office is not going to call you first. A deputy or member of law enforcement will come to you to serve you.

If you are in fact arrested and taken away, you will appear before a magistrate. The magistrate will set bond, and monies paid by you or a bondsman can prevent your incarceration when the circumstances and bonding guidelines and law allows it.

It would be very rare for any member of law enforcement to ever call someone to turn themselves in, and it would be even more rare for any law enforcement officer to ever ask for money for any reason. It is not how the criminal or civil process works.

In addition, there is no circumstance EVER where you can pay a third party business, individual or institution to deal with avoiding a warrant.

Best advice. Hang up. Don’t give personal information. Don’t go somewhere to pay anything. And don’t get scammed.

If you need assistance call the Henderson Police Department at 438 4141, the Vance County Sheriff’s Office at 738 2200, and 911 if there is an emergency.