To the Editor:
On behalf of the families we serve at Family Promise of Beaufort County, we thank St. Francis Thrift Shop on Hilton Head Island for support of our mission to provide temporary shelter, family stability and permanent housing solutions for homeless families with children. As a grant recipient, we plan to use these funds to help assist our families with Daycare Services for the children in our sheltering program. Daycare subsidies are not available for our clients until they have gained employment, but it is important that parents have access to these services while they are searching for jobs, going on interviews, and attending Family Promise life skills classes.
Additionally, we thank Calhoun Station, located in Old Town Bluffton, for providing funds to help defer the cost of housing our families when our host congregations are unable to provide shelter. These funds will assist in providing much needed support.
Many thanks to both of these charitable organizations. We look forward to sharing our family’s success stories in the months ahead.
Lynda Halpern
Executive Director
Family Promise of Beaufort County
To the Editor:
The political dilemma in Washington continues. Blind party loyalty by selfish politicians and followers has stymied progress, contributing to gridlock and deterioration of our social system. Congress’s approval rating is an all-time low, our reputation in the world is rapidly declining.
Both parties are shamefully guilty, culminating in our current presidential election fiasco, where the Democratic and Republican candidates carry an abundance of negative and controversial baggage.
I was a single-party supporter for many years, but now I am nonaffiliated, sometimes apolitical, keeping an independent and open mind, supporting issues not political parties, and so should you be.
True, the media has fueled these party inadequacies with articles and editorials such as, “The GOP dug its own grave years ago” (Washington Post) and “Republicans are architects of their own misfortune” (Miami Herald).
The Democrats have their own set of serious issues. How have we, the citizens, allowed this dangerous situation? Answer: We choose not to get involved.
We must demand from our current and future elected officials a commitment to working together cooperatively toward a consensus, establishing term limits while curtailing the influence of lobbyists, super PACs, earmarks and special interest groups.
Harmon Melville, in his book “The Confidence-Man” (1857), referring to a con man, said, “his [or her, brackets mine] victims have no idea when factuality ends and fiction begins.”
Beware of the con, think independently, think outside of the “party” box. Be careful what you are asking for when you vote. No one party has all the right answers.
Earle Everett
Hilton Head Island
To the Editor:
In a recent letter to the editor, someone wrote that she was an “independent” thinker who loved America and thought that Donald Trump was no good, so she suggested that people should vote for a third party candidate as some kind of statement of principles.
I hope she feels better, when, thanks to her kind of thinking, Hillary Clinton gets elected and fills the Supreme Court with more with more Ruth Bader Ginsbergs and Sonia Sotomayors.
When she does that, you will see the First, Second and Fourth amendments to the Constitution go flying out the window – in the first 100 days of her presidency.
They will be able to come and arrest you if you so much as mention that you disagree with anything they are doing, or even if your neighbor reports that he overheard you say it. If you think that this is crazy talk, just look back at what happened in Nazi Germany, Communist Soviet Union, Communist China, and more, but I only have 250 words!
So all I have to say to this lady is, you might as well just write in your own name on the ballot. The results will be the same.
Please God, come and help us! It’s now or never!
Norman Shapp
Bluffton
To the Editor:
For the first time in the many years I’ve been voting in Presidential elections, I believe I’ll be walking into the voting booth on Nov. 8 with no clear decision in mind. I also suspect I won’t be alone in this situation.
Neither of the two major party tickets provide me with the confidence that a vote for either would be appropriate. They haven’t “wowed” me with confidence that the major issues facing the next president would be tackled in a manner that would actually improve the country.
At the same time, I find that none of the “third party” tickets really deserve my vote, which would be given just to send a message rather than to actually elect a president.
Some people mention Gary Johnson-Bill Weld as a positive alternative. In my opinion, if they were such great candidates, I would think they would have caught traction in one of the two primary parties.
And not voting is definitely not an acceptable course of action for me.
So, for the first time in my Presidential voting history, I’ll probably be “holding my nose” while making my last-minute selection.
I find this situation to be a huge tragedy for the voting public.
Michael F. Vezeau
Bluffton
