Latest news with #Clutter
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
CarePortal aims to help social workers and families with launch in Preston County
KINGWOOD, (WBOY) — West Virginia has one of the highest rates of children in foster care in the country, and a new program that's being introduced to the state this year is hoping to lower those numbers. On Tuesday, Preston County became the second county in the state to launch CarePortal, an online program that connects local churches to the real-time needs of vulnerable children and families, allowing the community to respond with tangible support. The program hopes to help prevent unnecessary foster care placement. The West Virginia Department of Human Services and Chestnut Mountain Village collaborated to make the launch possible. So far in Preston County, there are five churches already signed up and ready to help. Dozens of community members came out to the Kingwood Community Center on Tuesday to learn how the program works. Estate donates $75,000 to preserve Metropolitan Theatre The request for help is first administered by a child welfare agency, a pregnancy resource center, a school, a school district or a non-profit. Then instantly, churches, businesses, community groups and individuals that have signed up to help will get an alert and can choose to fulfill the request. 'It's absolutely supporting social workers. Now, when social workers see those needs, they see a family that needs a bed or a dresser, they're trying to find community resources on their own, they may be picking up the phone and calling the local church anyhow, they're trying to find other resources, they're encouraging the family to go do it, so this is actually making their jobs easier,' Greg Clutter, Director of Chestnut Mountain Village said. Currently, only social workers within the counties that have CarePortal can make requests, but Clutter said the goal is to have CarePortal across the entire state, joining 38 other states across the country that already use it. Clutter said once requests are made, one church or organization can lead the request with others pitching in as well, and it's all tracked to make sure one request is not getting multiples of the same items. In just three weeks, Monongalia County's CarePortal has helped 59 children. Clutter said the hope is for the next launch to be in Taylor and Upshur counties, one step closer to the mission of being available statewide. To learn more about CarePortal, you can go here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Montreal Gazette
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Montreal Gazette
My parents never put their house in order. So the death cleaning fell to us
Entertainment And Life By Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable. – Leonard Cohen, in 2016 in The New Yorker Late one January afternoon in 2009, a reader called to comment on a column I'd written — and we got to talking. She told me how, once her children were launched, she'd sold the house in which she'd raised them and moved to a rented upper duplex. At 80, she had just moved again — this time to a one-bedroom apartment. With each move, she had divested herself of more of her possessions so that now, in her compact apartment, she had only essentials. She was adamant, she said, about not wanting to leave the contents of her life for her children — or anyone — to sort through after her death. Listening to her, I saw into the future: I envisioned my parents' gracious two-level condo, with its art and furniture and rugs, its many books and endless carousels of vacation slides, the massive dining table around which so many happy meals had been shared, the storage area with its Jenga towers of bridge chairs, ladders, old suitcases and boxes of random stuff. And I knew it would fall to my brother and me to sort through their belongings once they were gone and decide what to do with them — to me, mostly, since my brother doesn't live in Montreal. More than once as our parents aged we had suggested, gently, that they consider divesting themselves of some of what they had accumulated and moving to a smaller place on a single level, perhaps in a building with an elevator. They wouldn't hear of it. 'We'll be in a small enough space eventually,' my father would say. And that was that. When he died in 2014, two months before what would have been his 90th birthday, my parents had been married for nearly 64 years. My mother was 92 when she died, in 2021. And the future I had envisioned during my conversation with the 80-year-old caller a dozen years earlier was now. My parents had never put their house in order. And so it would fall to us. The reality, of course, is that we will all die. And the prospect of our eventual demise should be reason enough to clear out unnecessary belongings and simplify our lives, says Swedish author and artist Margareta Magnusson — to figure out what is important to us and what we want to give away or discard so as not to burden others with those decisions. Yet 'some people can't wrap their heads around death. And these people leave a mess after them,' she observed in The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter (Scribner, 2018). 'A loved one wishes to inherit nice things from you. Not all things from you.' Magnusson's slim and sage guide, which urges us to streamline our lives sooner rather than later, became a bestseller and the basis for a touching reality TV series of the same name developed and narrated by actor and comedian Amy Poehler. The eight episodes of its first season aired in 2023 on Peacock. The practice of death cleaning is popular across Scandinavian countries — but particularly in Sweden, where it is known as döstädning. 'In Swedish it is a term that means that you remove unnecessary things and make your home nice and orderly when you think the time is coming closer for you to leave the planet,' writes the mother of five. 'I have collected many things over the years, and it gives me such joy to go through them all. Sorting through everything is sad sometimes, too, but I really do not want to give my beloved children and their families too much trouble with my stuff after I am gone.' Death cleaning is a concept, like spring cleaning. It is about editing, about keeping what matters to you and getting rid of the rest. It is as much about clearing your mind as anything, and as much — or more — for you as for those who come after you, says Magnusson, who is 90. She figures 65 is a good age at which to start döstädning. 'One's own pleasure, and the chance to find meaning and memory, is the most important thing,' she writes. 'And if you don't remember why a thing has meaning or why you kept it, it has no worth, and it will be easier for you to part with.' For some, hiring a specialist to help with the task is a solution. Longtime professional organizer Samara Shapson of Sort it Out with Samara works with people wanting less clutter and those downsizing from homes to apartments or condos . 'It's emotional. It's a huge job: You are going through someone's life,' she said. 'When I go into a client's home as a professional organizer, I have no attachment to what is in the home. Clients need to realize that stuff is eventually going to have to go — if just for peace of mind, to feel light and free. We don't need a lot of stuff to live. We don't need 10 pots and 10 pans.' Ideally, Shapson has a year ahead of a move with a client to go through belongings so that only what will be used is moved and after the move she helps set up the new place, starting usually with the kitchen and bathrooms. The work can be tedious, but 'I love tedious work — and that is to my benefit,' she said. 'I love organizing kitchens and other spaces: It's like heaven to me. I get to meet amazing people and to help people. I love the feeling of being organized and clutter-free — and I want others to experience it. It's not easy. But once you are finally living in that less cluttered environment, it's priceless.' While some clients are prepared to declutter when they contact her, others are not. 'At the beginning, it's a challenge. But it's a process and, after a while, they see how liberating it is,' Shapson said. 'My ultimate goal is to make you feel better — about your space and about yourself. In a way, I am part therapist.' If possible, Magnusson advises, take your time with death cleaning and proceed, thoughtfully and methodically, at a pace that works for you: After all, it took a lifetime to accumulate your belongings. Often, sentimental attachment can come into play. One participant in the death cleaning TV series had lost both parents within 14 months and his basement was filled with their belongings. 'When I think about letting go of anything my parents have owned, I feel I am letting go of a piece of them,' Godfrey Riddle told the show's team of Swedish experts helping participants to pare down: a psychologist, an organizer and a stylist. They helped him realize that giving away his parents' things didn't mean giving away his love for them — that death cleaning was, rather, about finding a new home for them in which they'd be used. He donated 90 per cent of the basement's contents. 'What was stopping Godfrey from getting rid of his parents' things was his fear of losing them,' said psychologist Katarina Blom. 'What he didn't realize was that his parents live on in his memories and in the memories his friends have of them.' My parents were not the sum total of their belongings: I knew that. Still, dismantling the house and deciding what to keep, what to sell, what to give away and what to trash was daunting, exhausting and, at times, heartbreaking. An estate sale is an option for some, but not for me. If I had once found these events entertaining and even fun, I no longer did: Perhaps it was watching my parents age, but I came to see estate sales as sad and undignified. The old golf trophies, the beaded cardigans, the china teacups and saucers: Once these objects had had a place in people's lives; sifting through them made me feel somehow complicit in the dismantling of those lives. I didn't want that. It was important to me that virtually all my parents' belongings pass through my hands; by choice, I worked mostly alone. Going through my parents' papers and coming upon anniversary cards with messages intended only for each other, sorting through stacks of dishes and linens, emptying shelves, drawers and closets crammed with clothing and shoes no one had worn in ages, there were times I wondered: Could they not have done some of this themselves? My father's shirts, neatly folded, were stacked in piles. They looked new; some doubtless were. He had stopped wearing business suits years earlier except rarely and yet rows of them remained in his closet, still smelling faintly of his aftershave. I found the stunning chiffon gown my mother had had made for my brother's bar mitzvah party in 1970: She had looked so glamorous. Both my parents were from Poland originally and had arrived in Montreal from Europe after the Second World War — my mother came in 1948 as part of a group of war orphans brought over by Canadian Jewish Congress, my father in 1949 with his parents and two brothers — and met at the Jewish Public Library, in an English class. They were married in December of 1950. Looking through their passports at all the places they had visited together over the years brought to mind their vital younger selves and made me nostalgic. Other times, though, like when a stack of ceramic floor tiles tumbled from a high shelf in the storage area as I moved a box and a falling tile gashed my forehead, the task infuriated me. My sweet husband hauled bag after bag to the recycling and trash bins as we tossed dozens of empty jars and yogurt containers my parents had, for reasons known only to them, held onto (along with scores of chipped dishes and broken kitchen implements). I emptied drawers crammed with socks and underthings and bathroom cabinets of half-empty tubes and expired medication. My mother had started university once my brother and I were in school and gone on to earn a PhD in comparative literature; she taught literature at CEGEP for a time and, in cabinets in her study, I found enough foolscap to equip an entire school, if schools still used foolscap. In the freestanding unheated garage I came upon old suitcases packed with magazines and mouldering bank statements dating to the 1980s, when they had moved to the downtown condo. Did they ever throw anything out? Household goods in decent shape — dishes, pots and linens, along with furniture, winter coats, boots, hats and scarves — were given to organizations that support refugees and others in need, including the Welcome Collective and the MADA Community Centre; the collection of cut crystal glasses went to the Collectibles Art & Antique Shop at the Jewish General Hospital. Most of their clothing and many of their books were donated to the thrift shops of NOVA, an organization which provides community-based palliative care services free of charge. I particularly like the spacious layout of the Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue branch, which has a bookstore next door. Someone enormously helpful in the person of Patrick Lalonde, who helped to appraise collectibles and other items, contacted people he knew would be interested in, say, the mid-century teak or rosewood furniture, the small Chinese cloisonné pieces or the sword in a leather scabbard I have no idea how my parents acquired, and he dealt with them on my behalf. Although he also organizes and runs estate sales as part of his work, Lalonde respected my wish not to have one. My brother and I each selected some belongings with meaning for us, including paintings and decorative objects, rugs and books. My mother's favourite colour was blue and I held on to some of her blue glass bowls and vases. I kept her Hermes 2000 manual typewriter, with its mint-green keys, even though the fabric-lined case had grown mouldy with years in the unheated garage: I remember its busy clickety-clack as she typed her term papers. My father was a decorated Second World War soldier, a gunner in a Polish tank corps — and I have his medals. My brother kept a large oak cabinet housing a punch clock used for years in my father's millinery factory. He took my parents' slides and some of their photographs and I have the rest. We'll tackle organizing those next. Susan Schwartz montrealgazette 514-386-8794 Susan Schwartz, a native Montrealer, is a longtime reporter and feature writer at The Gazette.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
CarePortal introduced to West Virginia in Monongalia County
MORGANTOWN, (WBOY) — A public event was held in Morgantown Thursday afternoon to officially introduce the local community to CarePortal at Hotel Morgan. 'CarePortal is a connecting technology that connects those people that see the needs of vulnerable children and family in our community, with people who are willing to meet those needs,' said Chestnut Mountain Village Director Greg Clutter. Clutter told 12 News that in West Virginia and Monongalia County specifically, there are a lot of people in the community who would love to help vulnerable children and families if they were aware of the need. Now, by using this app, frontline people like Department of Human Services (DoHS) workers, Child Protective Services (CPS) employees and other agencies like the local women's center can enter different needs for participating agencies to respond to. There are 14 churches in Monongalia County that have signed up to participate in this initiative. Clutter said that these churches and their volunteer recruits will be able to see the needs via CarePortal and can help address them. 'Probably more importantly, they're able to give those struggling families connection back to the community,' said Clutter. 'That's not government. It's somebody—it's a neighbor in their community.' In addition to the local churches and volunteers, local business people can sign up to help out as a 'community champion.' 'If a local carpenter said 'I'd love to be able to be part of this and be able to respond,' they can sign up as a community champion so that they know about the need too,' Clutter added. WV Navigator offering help with insurance enrollment amid recent layoffs However, Clutter said a caveat is that any community champions would be connected with a local church. 'The more important part of this is not necessarily just meeting that need and fixing that home, it's them meeting neighbors,' he said. 'It's the family getting different connections—social, emotional, other connections in the community because being in this situation—it's lonely, it's isolating.' The CarePortal initiative is specifically focused on children and families, so communication will largely go through local child-serving agencies. However, the families will always be asked if they'd be willing to accept help prior to having their needs entered into the portal. According to Clutter, the process to bring CarePortal to West Virginia first began back in 2023. He said that a small group consisting of him and four others wanted to find a way to utilize all the different churches and businesses in Monongalia County to help local families that are in need. Clutter said that the group's theory is that there are already more than enough resources and more than enough people who are willing to help in the community to help these vulnerable children and families. 'But we just felt like something might be missing. When we dove into it, we discovered we had amazing agencies,' he said. Clutter stated that CarePortal is a national organization that's based out of Missour and that when his team reached out to the organization, CarePortal shared that they'd never heard from anyone in West Virginia as the state is the 33rd to participate. 'The first hurdle was they had to figure out where to put us,' said Clutter. 'We ended up connecting with someone that was already doing this work in Virginia, and then we got to work and we did a very small pilot project.' For the pilot, Chestnut Mountain Village worked with Compass Women's Center in Morgantown to see what could be done on a smaller scale. Shortly after initiating the pilot, Clutter said that the then-commissioner under the DoHS asked how they could get involved as well. 'We quickly stoked out a pilot project to say let's try this in a couple communities,' Clutter added. Chestnut Mountain Village then recruited 14 churches, trained the agencies and began the process of putting things in place with the DoHS. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Arab News
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
US organization scraps Palestine issue of Journal of Architectural Education, fires executive editor
LONDON: The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture has scrapped plans for the fall 2025 edition of its Journal of Architectural Education, which would have focused on Palestine, and dismissed the publication's interim executive editor. The decision followed a vote on Feb. 21 by the association's board of directors, which cited 'substantial risks' at both personal and editorial levels, The Architect's Newspaper reported over the weekend. 'The decision followed an extended series of difficult discussions within the organization about the potential risks from publishing the issue,' the board said. 'The ACSA board decided that the risks from publishing the issue have significantly increased as a result of new actions by the US federal administration, as well as other actions at state levels. 'These substantial risks include personal threats to journal editors, authors and reviewers, as well as to ACSA volunteers and staff. They also include legal and financial risks facing the organization overall.' The same day, the association dismissed the journal's interim executive editor, McLain Clutter, who is also an associate professor at the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Clutter, whose position with the journal was supposed to continue until 2026, told The Architect's Newspaper that he was fired because he refused to support the decision to cancel the issue, and accused the association of being 'on the wrong side of history.' He added: 'I am deeply disappointed by the actions of the ACSA Board. This decision represents a blatant violation of the principles of academic freedom, intellectual integrity and ethical scholarship that the organization claims to uphold.' Founded in 1912, ACSA is an international organization that represents academic architectural programs and faculty, primarily in the US and Canada. It publishes the Journal of Architectural Education, and Technology: Architecture + Design. Plans for the Fall 2025 issue of the former included a focus on the 'ongoing Israeli genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza' and 'urgent reflections on this historical moment's implications for design, research and education in architecture,' according to a call for papers issued last fall. The editors of the issue — including Palestinian scholar Nora Akawi, an assistant professor at The Cooper Union in New York — criticized the cancellation and Clutter's dismissal as part of a broader trend of censorship in the US and Europe of topics related to Palestine. They said they were 'dismayed by the decision' but 'not surprised,' given that the ACSA had sought to block the plans for the issue even before the call for papers went out in September 2024. They accused the organization of using 'new actions by the US presidential administration' as a pretext for its latest actions. The ACSA said the fall 2025 issue of the publication would proceed with a different theme, and it was 'evaluating its options for the journal within a broader framework.' The spring 2025 issue, titled 'Architecture Beyond Extraction,' which explores the relationship between architecture and extractivism and resource use, will be published in the coming weeks as scheduled.
