New Canaan Promotes ‘Tech-Free Family Time’ through ’30 Days of Family’

Town and local nonprofit officials are urging New Canaan families this month to unplug their mobile devices and spend more time communicating directly with each other. The Department of Human Services-led “30 Days of Family” initiative this year has taken up “tech-free family time” as its motto. Unplugging forces family members to talk to each other “with their voices and spend quality time making eye contact and practicing listening skills,” according to Jacqueline D’Louhy, the department’s coordinator of youth and family services. “Think about how much teens ‘talk’ to each other electronically,” D’Louhy said. “Sometimes they’ll be sitting in the same room but never utter a word to one another.

Town Renews Lease with St. Mark’s for Food Pantry through Year’s End; Facility May Be Relocated To Publicly Owned Building in Future

New Canaan’s food pantry, long operated out of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, may be relocated to a town-owned building following a report due at summer’s end, officials said. A newly appointed committee is studying the condition, needs and uses of 40-plus publicly owned buildings, and the food pantry may at some point move to one of them “that may be under-utilized,” according to First Selectman Rob Mallozzi. “That will be determined as we look at our buildings and what we have,” Mallozzi said during a special meeting Tuesday of the Board of Selectmen, held at Town Hall. “I will heave that in other hands for the time being.”

The comments came as the selectmen approved unanimously a $1,250-per-month lease with St.

‘We Are a Place That Can Receive People’: Despite Executive Order, Nonprofit ‘NC Welcomes’ Readies for Refugee Family

For Cindy Stewart, a New Canaan resident for 11 years, recent changes in the United States’ immigration policies are an opportunity to teach her teenage children lessons in democracy. Chief among those is “to make their own voices heard,” according to Stewart. “I feel like it’s important for us to model that for them and to show them to stand up for what we believe in and I want to support our view for what this nation is all about, and this is part of our process,” Stewart said Sunday afternoon from Morrill Hall at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, moments after signing up for the ‘Welcome’ and ‘Transportation’ committees of a newly formed New Canaan group seeking to help resettle a refugee family. “We talk a lot at home over the dinner table about the political situation in Syria.

PHOTOS: May Fair 2016

Scores of New Canaanites and area residents arrived at the (pesticide-free) grounds of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Saturday for the annual May Fair. Under a gray sky and scattered light rain, children and families smiled and screamed on rides, feasted on barbecue from the Holy Smokers, as well as cotton candy, strawberry shortcake, pizza from Joe’s Pizza and ice cream from Baskin Robbins, shopped at the hugely popular White Elephant tag sale and enjoyed live music from School of Rock New Canaan musicians. For the second straight year, the fair featured a “Friday Night Lights” preview prior to the traditional fair, with rides and food.

Letter: St. Mark’s Collecting Winter Coats, Jackets and Vests

Dear Editor,

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church is currently collecting clean, gently used winter coats, jackets, and vests for our friends and neighbors in need—hats, gloves, and mittens welcome, too. Once sorted, these will be taken to New Canaan’s department of Health & Human Services, which will distribute them to individuals and families just before Christmas. There will be drop boxes in three locations on the St. Mark’s campus—outside the Lion’s Den Bookstore, in the hallway outside Morrill Hall and at the entrance to the Church House in the rear.