Communities That Care

Posted on February 11, 2011

Five Town CTC To Start New Feature Page By Teens

Five Town Communities That Care is starting a new monthly full-page feature through The Herald Gazette to give middle school and high school teens in Appleton, Hope, Camden, Rockport and Lincolnville a platform to vocalize the kind of issues that don’t normally get heard. Because most teens in our community don’t have a direct connection to mainstream media, they’ve typically been portrayed in one of two categories: those who achieve in sports and academics and those who run afoul with the law. We believe that there is much more of a range and value of self-expression that teens can offer in this community and this will be the first time a full sheet in the newspaper lends itself monthly to their personal issues and triumphs.

Kay Stephens, a Village Soup correspondent for thescene, has been hired as the Editor of this project and is actively seeking input from local schools and youth-focused agencies in the five-town community and from the teens themselves. Based on a theme provided by Five Town CTC, she will be soliciting written essays, blogs, journal entries, poems, lyrics, cartoons and photography artwork from local students. She will work with the students on editing and layout and follow up with them to make deadlines.  All submissions will be edited by Stephens and some will be published under anonymous pseudonyms.

Themes will change month to month in this newspaper feature and as the program grows, submissions will eventually be broadened to include online elements such as music, video and animation. This is a chance for students to vocalize what’s “real” in their lives and for adults to appreciate what is meaningful to the adolescents in this community.

If you facilitate, teach, or organize a group of area teens, Stephens would like to hear from you.  To set up an appointment for Stephens to come in personally and meet with your students, please email editor@fivetownctc.org; call the Five Town CTC offices at 236-9800 and leave a message for Stephens; place a message on the Five Town Communities That Care Facebook page; or stop in to the offices at 219 Meadow Street.

If you are a teen who wants to submit something individually, you can use the same contact methods listed above, but be sure to include your name and a phone number so Stephens can get in touch with you for editing purposes.

Kay Stephens joins the Five Town CTC staff as the Editor for the new project.

Posted on February 1, 2011

STAR Canceled Due to Slippery Roads (Feb 1)

Due to yet another heavy snow storm, we will not run the STAR program this afternoon.

As is always true, when our sending schools (Appleton Village School, Hope Elementary School, Lincolnville Central School, or Camden Rockport Middle School) cancel classes due to inclement weather, we do not run the STAR program, so check the no school announcements regarding tomorrow’s scheduled STAR classes (no school, no STAR).

If you have questions about the STAR program, please give us a call at 207-975-6722 (the STAR cell phone) or at the Five Town CTC office at 207-236-9800.