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Benjamin Ostrowski is a current PhD student studying Organizational Behavior at Carnegie Mellon University. He has poems published in The Gyroscope Review, Blue Muse, weirderary, The Dark River Review, An Anthology of Emerging Poets, and The American Journal of Poetry. With his father, Steven Ostrowski, he has published a collaborative chapbook called Seen/unseen. Steven Ostrowski is a poet, fiction writer, painter and songwriter. In 2009, he won Harpur Palate’s Milton Kessler Award for a single poem. In 2017, he won The Atlantic Road Prize for his long poem, After the Tate Modern, which will be published as a chapbook by Island Verse Editions in 2018. He has published four previous chapbooks, and his work appears widely in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. He teaches in the English Department at Central Connecticut State University. These poems are part of a collaboration between father and son:

Trustees to manage Jobs Creation and Retention Trust fund, work with stakeholders to implement workforce development strategies, and more

The City of Somerville is currently seeking applicants for the newly created Jobs Creation and Retention Trust (JCRT) Board of Trustees. Responsibilities for members will include managing the JCRT fund, working with the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (OSPCD) staff to implement strategies outlined in the workforce development strategic plan released early this year, identifying target industry sectors and resident demographics for job training programs, soliciting project proposals, and more.

SMC Art Exhibit
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The Canary Warnings are a series of paintings inspired by the practice of keeping a canary in a coal mine as an early warning system for miners. When the bird dies the air will soon be too toxic for humans as well. The canary serves a kind of guardian, like a life force monitor. This series considers a myriad of possibilities about the ways in which one could be warned of tragedies or other dangerous situations.  It is my hope that the viewer will “read” and interpret the Canary much like reading tea leaves or deciphering a Rorschach test.

Adult Family Care Licensed Clinical Social Worker Lissa Marcucci.

By Lissa Marcucci

Providing in-home care for someone who needs daily assistance is a major commitment. It’s not something people enter into lightly – and for that reason, it’s important for a caregiver to have a backup plan ready before it’s needed.

I recently spoke to a fellow social worker who saw the importance of a backup plan firsthand He was working with a caregiver who believed that a family friend would step in to provide care if needed. However, the caregiver never discussed this plan with that friend. When the caregiver unexpectedly landed in the hospital, the friend was not in a position to help.

The 7th Annual Corn Toss Tournament, hosted by the Ryan Harrington Foundation, takes place on Saturday, September 15, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. at Trum Field.

Registration will begin at 10 a.m. Games will start at 11:30 a.m. Registration fee is $50 per team. Two players per team. There is a men and a women’s division. Cash prize goes to the winners of each division.

Join Mayor Joseph Curtatone and Ward 5 Alderman Mark Niedergang on Friday, August 24, at 9 a.m. for the ribbon cutting ceremony at Hoyt Sullivan Playground. Located at 117 Central St., Hoyt Sullivan Playground design highlights natural features and encourages exploratory adventure play.

Playgrounds features include log climbers and a tree house structure, an interactive water and sand play area, rolling slopes for running and play, an ADA-accessible circulation path for scooters and trikes, basketball backboards for all ages, a large centrally located deck around the beech tree, a café style plaza, and a new cantilevered deck overlooking the trains in the corridor below.

(L-R) Eva Clauson (Brookline), Lauren Foreman (Somerville), Christina Bell (Framingham), Sakura McGarrell-Ayuso (Boston), Funmi Folorunso (Boston), and Mary Folorunso (Boston).

Girl Scouts grades K-8 and their families celebrated National S’mores Day at Camp Cedar Hill in Waltham on Friday, August 10. Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts, including girls from Somerville welcomed nearly 60 attendees to S’mores Night Out with songs, a nature scavenger hunt, crafting s’mores necklaces, face painting, and, of course, toasting delicious s’mores over a campfire! Girls also did a STEM marshmallow tower challenge, engineering a tall tower using mini marshmallows and toothpicks. Girls new to Girl Scouts were able to register for the new Troop Year at the event.

The rate of fatal opioid overdoses varied significantly by industry and occupation from 2011 to 2015, with construction workers dying from opioid overdoses at six times the average rate for all Massachusetts workers, according to a report released today by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH).

Using available death certificate data, DPH analyzed 4,302 opioid-related deaths in Massachusetts from 2011 to 2015 by industry and occupation to understand whether work, and specifically work-related injuries, might have contributed to opioid use disorders. Overall, workers employed in occupations known to have high rates of work-related injuries had higher rates of fatal opioid overdoses. In addition, workers in occupations with lower rates of paid sick leave and higher job insecurity had higher rates of opioid overdoses. Construction and extraction workers (quarrying and mining) accounted for more than 24 percent of all opioid-related deaths among the working population. This occupation group had a high death rate – 150.6 deaths per 100,000 workers – and a high number of opioid-related deaths – 1,096 – during this time period.

Join Thorpe Street Presents Somer Fest, a feel-good festival celebrating community art in all of its forms. There will be live music, comedy and magic. There will also be locally-sourced-organically-grown-BPA-free-delicious food and beer.

Saturday, August 18, 2018, 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. at ArtFarm, 10 Poplar St., Somerville. Tickets $10 online, $20 at the door. 21+