Cans for CT: A Memorial Day Update

By DAN MALLOY

Last week, Team Dan Malloy for Connecticut created ”Cans for Connecticut,” a partnership with the Connecticut Food Bank that raises funds to help our communities’ neediest put food on their tables.  We launched the drive with a significant goal of $5,000 by June 1, and with your help, I’m proud to announce that we shot past our goal and raised an incredible nine thousand dollars in less than one week!

But we can do even better.  With a week to go until June 1, I am asking you to open your heart and your wallet and give back to those who need our help the most.  It is especially fitting to see such an outpouring of kindness and good will as we celebrate Memorial Day and commemorate our veterans, the brave men and women who are the ultimate embodiment of community service.  Veterans who serve our country give of themselves so that we have the freedom we’re fortunate to enjoy today and it’s our duty to honor them by living by their example.

It’s with heartfelt gratitude that I thank you for your continued support of this cause.  Click here to make a donation to Cans for Connecticut.

On this Memorial Day, I encourage you to reflect upon the sons and daughters from our community who are no longer with us, and offer thanks for their commitment and the enormous sacrifices they have made on our behalf.  Thank you to veterans throughout the ages, and especially for those still in harms way fighting wars today.  May God bless them and bring them home quickly and safely!

Cans for Connecticut

By DAN MALLOY

“Leave the world a better place for your having lived in it.” When I was growing up, that’s what my mother told me nearly every day.

Today, I’m inviting you to join me in doing just that. With tens of thousands of Connecticut residents out of work and local food banks reporting increases in need as high as 20 percent over the past few months, the need for Connecticut residents to band together and help each other is greater than ever. Our responsibility to make sure that the most basic needs of those who desperately need our help is at once more difficult, and yet increasingly more important.

So this week, Team Dan Malloy for Connecticut has formed a partnership with the Connecticut Food Bank and Connecticut Food share to create “Cans for Connecticut”, a virtual food drive that will help feed the hungry in all 8 counties in our state- with the goal of raising $5,000 in food by June 1st.

By simply clicking on the link you can quickly and easily make your contribution today. In doing so, you’ll be helping to put a healthy meal on the plates of people across our state – people who are struggling to pay their mortgages, keep their health care and pay their bills. Even the smallest amount can make a difference — just one dollar provides three meals and the five dollars you might use to buy lunch today can be used instead to buy 17 meals to feed the needy. 

If each of us makes a small contribution, together we’ll deliver a big result.  Please, take a moment and contribute today.

1%

By MICHAEL K. NORRIS

Last fall, I visited Houston, Texas. My wife and I did not rent a car and walked in the cooperative weather or took the delightful light rail system as far as it would go. At one store, we agreed that we wanted to go to another that was less than two miles away, but we didn’t know how to get there. We asked a clerk for directions, and five seconds into her response (her first or second use of the term, ‘U-turn’) we realized she assumed we were driving. My wife told her we were going on foot, and the clerk just couldn’t follow.

 “It’s less than two miles, isn’t it?”

“It’s less than two miles, but it’s not walking distance,” said the clerk.

“But wait, we’re walking there,” my wife said again. “We just need to know what streets we should walk down.”

“It’s not walking distance.”

My wife, who lived in New York City for several years and never owned a car, went through it again.

“But you said it was less than two miles!”

“It is, but it’s not walking distance.”

Eventually, we got it straightened out, and laughed about it as we walked to our destination. It wasn’t the clerk’s fault she couldn’t understand why we didn’t have a car. Some towns and cities have the automotive infrastructure so firmly in place (on both the landscape and on the mindset) other means of transit don’t occur to them. When I lived in rural New Hampshire and wanted to buy groceries or see a movie, I knew had to drive my car 2 miles and 20 miles, respectively. Walking to the grocery store along a busy road that didn’t have a sidewalk never occurred to me.

Five years of living in Stamford (the first city I ever lived in) I think I’m finally starting to get it. I have a 3,200 pound SUV, a 35 pound bicycle, and a pair of sneakers too light to weigh. I have a ten-trip Metro North ticket in my wallet with three trips left, and a MTA card that may or may not have another NYC subway ride left on it. On the back of that card is the following: “Every full rail car keeps 75 to 125 cars off the road.”

I care about a good automotive infrastructure as much as the next motorist, but I’m more interested in getting from one place to another as safely and conveniently as I can. That kind of mentality, that there are plenty of ways to get around that need to be supported, was reflected yesterday by a bill passed by the Appropriations Committee that would require cities and towns to set aside 1% of road funds to improve bicycle and pedestrian access. The Stamford Advocate covered the story.

I hope a bill that’s as forward-thinking and sensible as this one makes it through. Giving people choices to get to their destinations and back again will give this state a great return on what is truly a tiny investment.

Education Comes First

By DAN MALLOY

This past weekend, I spoke to the Connecticut Education Association conference about the present challenges and future goals for education in Connecticut.

Please take a few moments to watch the video:

Especially in times of economic difficulties, we must not turn our backs on one of our communities’ hardest working and often under appreciated groups- our teachers.  Now, more than ever we must invest in education to ensure the success of future generations.  Our children deserve nothing less.

The challenges facing our state are too great to ignore, and the journey to build a new and better Connecticut is just beginning. I ask you to join our team as we work together to spark an important dialogue and get the job done.