On Saturday, March 2, a sold-out room of more than 70 attendees and nine breweries raised a pint and funds for the Mass Brewers Guild during Meet the Brewers Freshman Class of 2019.

The Mass Brewers Guild is the state’s nonprofit organization that works to protect and promote the interest of craft brewers. The intimate, roundtable style tasting event featured the state’s newly launched breweries and offered ticket holders unique access to brewers.

The number of applicants for affordable rental units in Massachusetts far exceeds the supply and is rapidly growing, one of the many issues addressed by the Section 8 Housing Choice Mobile Voucher Program.

By Jim Clark

A resolution to urge the city’s Congressional Delegation to sponsor the Universal Housing budget amendment was put forward at the latest meeting of the Somerville City Council.

Ward 3 Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen said that the resolution was submitted in collaboration with a number of affordable housing activists in the community, in support of fully funding the Section 8 Housing Choice Mobile Voucher Program.

Linda Schlossberg writes fiction and teaches literature and creative writing at Harvard.

By JT Thompson

Linda Schlossberg grew up in San Francisco, initially in the Haight Ashbury district, then in the suburbs, and came to Boston as an undergraduate at Brandeis. She then earned a PhD at Harvard in English and American literature, and is now Assistant Director of Studies for Harvard’s Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. She was thrilled to be awarded a 2019 Literary Arts Fellowship from the Somerville Arts Council/Mass Cultural Council, as well as the 2016 Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Writer’s Center in Maryland.

On Sunday, March 17, 3:00 p.m. at Sally O’Brien’s, 335 Somerville Ave., owner Liam Mannion and Rob McWatters invite everyone to hoist a pint of Guinness. Enjoy some Irish music and nosh on some corned beef and cabbage at Sally’s, the best Irish pub in the city.

The Massachusetts Senior Action Council (MSAC), with active members from Somerville, Cambridge, and other adjoining communities, joined with allies from six other elder advocacy organizations to lobby lawmakers on life-saving reforms seniors say they need to protect their health, wellbeing and dignity as they age. MSAC is the only elder organization in Massachusetts that is run by its senior members.

Somerville Media Center (SMC) hosted its 2019 SMC Honors Gala at Arts At The Armory on Friday, March 8. This night recognized the best facets of community-made media shared in greater Somerville.

Seniors with State Tournament Trophy & North Division Plaque: (L to R) Ashley Cadet, Ashley Fortune, Kaleesha Joseph and N’yshma Leroy.

By Katie Harris

Last Friday night at the Clark Athletic Center on the campus of the University of Massachusetts in Boston, the curtain came down on the 2018-2019 varsity girls’ basketball season in the Massachusetts Charter School Athletic Association. The last act in the season was the state tournament championship game pitting the 2017-2018 state tournament champion and this season’s top seeded Prospect Hill Academy Lady Wizards (19-0) against the third seeded Pioneer Charter School of Science II Lady Pirates (16-2) from Saugus.

Eagle Feathers #174 – Teele Square

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

In 1836 Jonathan W. Teele, who was a participant in the battle of Lexington and a five-year veteran of the Revolutionary War, built the Teele House. It was a travelers’ roadhouse at the corner of Broadway and Curtis Street. His family eventually acquired and built upon much of the Clarendon Hill land between Professors Row and the Cambridge line.

It’s a tradition that most of us have a lot of fun with. Whether one is of Irish lineage or not, St. Patrick’s Day stands for a recognition of Irish and Irish American culture, and in many ways its resulting fusion.

The religious origins of the day have, for some, been obscured and often all but forgotten in favor of the prominent displays of the color green, eating and drinking, and numerous parades. The day has been celebrated on the North American continent since before the American Revolution, and is actually an official holiday in neighboring Suffolk County. Ask any of our Boston brethren and they would – to a single soul – be aware of this fact.

(L to R) former Somerville Ward 3 Alderman Bob McWatters, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, and Zac Zasloff at Senator Sal Didemenico’s St. Patrick’s Day Celebration on Friday, March 8, at the Charlestown Knights of Columbus. Several elected officials tried out their best jokes at the event that featured laughs, food and song, and included an Irish Dinner, music by Devri, bagpipers, comedians, videos and plenty of laughter.