These days, many Westport businesses need help navigating the current COVID crisis — and planning for whatever follows.
Now they’ve got it. Town officials have partnered with Westport-based non-profit Social Venture Partners for a free service.
SVP volunteers — talented, experienced businessmen and women — will be paired with local owners. SVP provides individual, confidential advice in areas like financial modeling; understanding COVID-related government programs and loan options; online business platforms, marketing and social media; and HR issues.
Second Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker oversees the program. Businesses can participate if they have a physical presence in Westport, an employee base, and have been established for at least one year.
Interested businesses should email LBAPinfo@westportct.gov. For more information on SVP, click here.
WestportMoms — the amazing Melissa Post and Megan Brownstein — have a great last-minute idea: a virtual Easter egg hunt. With, of course, a way to help our heroes.
It’s called “Bagels & Bleach” (because … read on). For every family that participates by hanging a decorated egg in their window between now and Sunday, New York’s Bantam Bagels (whose owners live here) will donate a box of bagels to the front lines at Norwalk Hospital.
But wait! There’s more! Winged Monkey will also donate bottles of bleach.
Just post your creation on Instagram. Be sure to tag #westportmomsegghunt for your box of bagels to count.
PS: WestportMoms will send a sampling (of egg photos, not bagels) to “06880.”
If you’re like me, you haven’t driven anywhere much in weeks. I now get 3 weeks to the gallon.
But if your car is looking grotty — perhaps from sitting underneath all that pollen — Scott Tiefenthaler has good news.
The owner of Westport Wash & Wax reopens tomorrow (Saturday, April 11). New hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Scott spoke with 1st Selectman Jim Marpe and Police Chief Foti Koskinas. In accordance with state guidelines listing car washes as an essential service, he’ll offer exterior wash services and interior/exterior detailing, all on a virtually no-contact basis.
Westport Wash & Wax also provides express interior/exterior detail services (the customer waits), and complete interior/exterior detail services (cars are dropped off), which require no contact between customers and staff.
Fresh towels are used on each car. They’re cleaned and sanitized between each use.
For complete detailing, call 203-227-9274. For other services, stop by during business hours.
Jim and Nancy Eckl of Gold’s Delicatessen say that beginning Monday (April 13), they’ll be closed on Mondays. New hours (Tuesday through Sunday) are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“W e love our customers,” they say. “But we also love our employees! That’s why we are adjusting our hours: to give them some much needed time off to restore and recharge, so we can be here for you when you need us! Thanks for your support, and stay safe.”
For curbside and delivery orders, click here.
Katie Augustyn is part of a group of holistic health practitioners. They provide a variety of healing services — shamanic, reiki, guided meditation and the like. But they’ve joined together under the umbrella “Healers for Humanity.”
Their rates are far below what they normally receive. All they ask is what you can afford to pay.
“We are living through incredibly challenging times,” Katie says. “If you are feeling anxiety or stress, you are not alone. We are here to help.”
Click here to find a practitioner who matches your needs, and schedule a session. For more information email transformationcenterct@gmail.com, or call 203-820-3800.
As Westport’s COVID-19 lockdown began, Diane Dubovy Benke helped her disappointed kids put things in perspective by reminding them of what their grandfather went though as a Jewish child in Nazi Europe.
“In Czechoslovakia when the Nazis came, we were put under house arrest from 1940 to 1942,” she says. “It meant no school for me from December 1939 until the end of the war. I was 7 years old in 1940. We were allowed to go out for only two hours on Friday, from 3 to 5 pm. How did I cope under house arrest? I don’t remember, but somehow I survived without TV, no internet, only books and some toys.”
Diane’s father Carl Dubovy tells his incredible Holocaust survival story– coming within steps of the gas chambers at Auschwitz — in an interview with Persona’s Rob Simmelkjaer. Your kids can send him their own questions by downloading the Persona Interviews app, and sending Carl Dubovy a question.
Click below for the full, fascinating interview:
And finally, not a song — but a video definitely worth watching. Bellissimo!
Loved the video, Dan. Thanks!
Katie is a wonderful healer. I always leave her sessions feeling peaceful, calm and light.
This is what I’ve been saying to those who complain of cabin fever:
Anne Frank and 6 other adults lived in less than 500 square feet for a little over 2 years, not allowed to go out at all, and not even allowed to make noise during the day for fear of being discovered.
That pretty much puts things in perspective. Sorrowfully.
Not only that, but think of the greatest generation, the depression, WWII, also people who have been held hostage for long time. We are lucky that we can e-mail, text and go on the internet. I hate people that are always complain about today’s youth, which I think every generation does, but they can learn a lot from history. So to those sheltered at home, now is a good time to read Anne Frank’s diary, I’m sure you can order it from Amazon.
I had to read in school when I was 14, I grew up and was educated in Denmark, and turned 14 in 1959, not so long after the war.. Also my parents and family had stories to tell from the German occupation that I have always remembered.