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Response to Nov. 6 letter to editor

By Staff | Nov 20, 2020

I write this response to Mark Kohut’s letter to the editor in the November 6 edition of the Chronicle on Veteran’s Day, which also is my late mother’s birthday. The Shepherdstown Community Club board takes COVID-19 very seriously. We are the owners of both the War Memorial Building and Morgan’s Grove Park. The pandemic caused us to shut down the building for a period of time, and the board has kept Morgan’s Grove Park open for the community to use, despite the added costs to us as we face this pandemic. We have reopened the building following regulatory guidelines, which means that rentals are limited, leaving our largest source of funds cut for an undetermined length of time.

We debated long and hard about whether we should have the book sale. We used Germrid-Eco LLC — a professional cleaning service — to spray the entire building before the sale. We put hand sanitizer bottles on every table. A lovely volunteer member made a splash guard for our cashier station. We required masks for all workers and customers. We limited the number of customers on each floor. While I was working, one woman came in and wasn’t wearing a mask. We approached her and she willingly put on her mask. I worked several times over the weekend, and this was the only person I saw without a mask, other than very small children and babies.

Mark’s letter was written before we sent the details to the membership about the annual meeting. The meeting is taking place tonight. Germrid is again cleaning all spaces we are using, and the chairs will be set up at a safe distance from each other. We are limiting the total number of in-person folks to 25; all members can participate through Facebook Live. The details for the precautions we are taking were sent to the membership on Sunday November 8th.

Our club has taken a big hit financially, due to the pandemic and the need to distance ourselves and not host events indoors. We are following guidelines to reopen our building in a safe manner. We recently had to cancel our Halloween event and our Victorian Tea Party. We miss our members tremendously, and hope that we will be able to gather again sometime in 2021.

Our club is about to send out an annual fund drive letter and annual report. We’ve been trying to build a database, so we can get this information to as many as we can. We might not capture everyone that is interested. The Allemall Foundation has stepped up to offer a challenge grant for funds raised during this campaign, so if you are interested in getting this information and aren’t currently a member or donor, please let us know by sending an email to info@shepherdstowncc.org or by calling our office at 304-876-3323.

SCC Treasurer Karen Hacker Kinnett