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God in His wisdom, calls us to serve where we can most effectively use our talents to meet the needs of His people. We don't have to endeavor to be Mother Theresa. We simply need to be ourselves. This series will focus on people who shine the light of Christ in their daily work.

Jennifer Molnar believes that “donkeys are like potato chips, you can’t have just one.” Jennifer is known as the “Donkey Lady of Amston, CT '' where she operates Donifer Farms, the home of five varieties of donkeys: micro-mini, miniature, standard, large standard, and mammoth.

What makes this farm truly unique is that it was created and maintained solely to educate and uplift those who visit. Along with the donkeys, Jennifer has created a two-story donkey museum, which houses possibly the most extensive collection of donkey memorabilia in the world. Have you ever seen a statue of a pregnant Blessed Mother riding on a donkey? You can see it here!

Jennifer has loved donkeys ever since she was eight years old and recovering from surgery for the removal of a large brain tumor. “When I returned to school after my surgery, I didn’t fit in”, Molnar said. “The kids treated me differently – I felt like an outsider.” At that time, her family purchased a donkey for her, and although she felt isolated from her peers, “I knew that I could always go and tell my problems to the donkey,” she said. From that experience, Jennifer learned the healing power of animals and wanted to share it with others in need.

According to her, donkeys are wonderful animals. They are stoic, pragmatic, and they have astonishing memories. They are keenly intelligent and often learn a task the first time it is taught to them. They also have surprising reasoning abilities and must be shown not just how to do something, but why they should do it. This trait is often misidentified as "stubbornness." Donkeys are also very social and affectionate, this trait is what makes them so appropriate for Jennifer’s work.

For Jennifer, Donifer Farms is both a passion and a ministry. Initially, she would show her animals and they have won many ribbons, but Jennifer’s focus now is more ministerial. Her donkeys can be seen in procession on Palm Sunday throughout the area, especially in her home Parish of the Good Shepherd (Saint Columba and Church of the Holy Family).

Carmel, the mammoth donkey, actually processes into the Gilead Congregational Church in Hebron on Palm Sundays, to the joy and astonishment of parishioners. Jennifer’s donkeys have visited elderly care facilities, jails for juveniles, religious day camps, and have been visited by special needs children.

The other day while she was riding her donkey Chewbacca down the road, they came across a woman who was crying. When the woman saw the donkey, she immediately perched-up, hugged him, took a picture of him with her cell phone, and said, ‘you don’t know how you have made my day!”

“That’s what it’s all about,” Jennifer said.

Visiting the farm is free of charge, but goodwill donations are gratefully accepted. For an appointment call or text: 860-380-7717

You and I may never be famous, however, if we are true to God and ourselves, then we will be blessed and be a blessing to the world around us. Don't be afraid to let the world know who you are. Just be true to yourself and let your faith shine through.

Please let us know of someone who is living their faith through their work. They could possibly be featured in a future issue of the Four County Catholic.

By Deacon Ben LoCasto

By Melanie Savage | [email protected] | Hartford Courant

PUBLISHED: December 14, 2022 at 7:04 p.m. | UPDATED: December 15, 2022 at 3:10 p.m.

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Stone walls bordering meandering country roads are a hallmark of a typical New England landscape.

Lebanon resident Jeffrey Ives, who specializes in rebuilding deteriorating, existing walls, is doing his part to help preserve this piece of American history.

“I like to rebuild old walls,” said Ives.

Ives, who has always liked rocks, said he was naturally drawn to masonry.

“Even as a kid I liked rocks,” he said.

He also has an interest in history, fostered by a mom who was an historian. Ives grew up in Amston, and his mom ran the doll show in Hebron for 28 years. Except for a short stint away in college, Ives lived in Amston all of his life, until his mom’s passing in 2017 prompted a move to Lebanon.

He is retired from working in sheet rocking and carpentry, but did not give up working with stones.

Ives got involved with masonry in 1985, after Hurricane Gloria ripped through New England and did damage to stone dams in Connecticut. He did work repairing a number of dams in towns such as Windham and Old Lyme, which eventually led to stone wall work. Ives specializes in dry stone walls using no mortar.

His walls , vary from approximately 38 inches at the base to 26 or 28 inches at the top, with a fill of riprap – small rocks that help facilitate good drainage.

“You don’t want the water building up in the wall, because the freeze and thaw will displace the stones,” said Ives.

A well-built dry stone wall can last for decades.

“I built a wall at my brother’s house in Lebanon 40 years ago, and it’s still there,” said Ives.

Ives has built for an estimated 125 different customers over the years, in towns such as Glastonbury, West Hartford, East Hampton, Marlborough, Hebron, Colchester, Lebanon, Lyme, and Coventry.

“Everything from 25 feet to thousands of feet,” he said.

The stone wall is somewhat ubiquitous in Connecticut. The 1871 agricultural census estimated there were more than 200,000 miles of stone walls in New England. A few have been built since then, but more have been torn down.

The walls have been used to fence in animals (think of historic clear-cutting of farmland, which left little wood for fencing, marked property boundaries and eventually used them decoratively..

Ives has built an occasional new wall, but prefers to preserve existing walls. Although he’s been asked, he’s never worked outside of Connecticut. He worked on one customer’s 5-acre property, off and on, for seven years. He gets all of his work through word-of-mouth and signs he puts up while he’s working. A recent job generated five inquiries from neighbors.

About what he likes about stone work, Ives said, “The feeling that when you’re done, it’s going to be there for a while.”

At 70, Ives said he plans to continue working with stones until he physically cannot do it anymore.

“I can’t just sit around the house and watch the birds,” he said.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 30 Church St., Hebron, will hold its first monthly community dinner of the year on Saturday from 4:30-6:30 p.m.

The menu will include stuffed cabbage, kielbasa, pierogies cooked with onions and bacon, sour cream, pickled beets, sauerkraut, sweet and sour red cabbage, rye bread and desserts. The cost is $14.

This is a take-out only dinner — first-come, first-served.

For information, call 860-228-3244 or visit:www.StPetersHebron.com

Servers will take orders from and bring food to each car.

Strong Family Farm

Strong Family Farm is accepting applications for the Connecticut Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, which supports Connecticut-grown produce.

The CSA is a food production and distribution system that directly connects farmers and consumers. Consumers purchase shares of a farm’s harvest in advance and receive a portion of the crops as they’re harvested.

This year, Strong Family Farm will collaborate with Mon Soleil Farm in Union to offer a pickup at the farm in Vernon on Thursdays from 2 to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Spring, summer, and fall shares and ¼ shares for singles are available.

For information or to sign up online, email: [email protected] or visit monsoleilct.com

Coming Up

Spaghetti dinner

The Hillstown Grange will hold a spaghetti dinner Thursday, March 24, at 6 p.m.

The cost is $5.

Following dinner, the grange will hold a seed giveaway and swap.

The COVID-19 pandemic boaught with it a renewed interest in gardening and the Hillstown Grange is trying a feed that growth.

Bring any extra seeds you may have to donate to the swap table. It could be something that someone wants to try in their garden.

Master gardeners will be on hand to answer questions and talk about outreach gardening programs.

For information, email Dan Gallagher at: [email protected].

The Hillstown Grange is at 617 Hills Street, East Hartford.

Bingo and Baskets

Andover Congregational Church, 359 Route 6, will host a Bingo and Baskets night Friday, March 25.

Dinner will be served at 5:30 p.m. followed by bingo at 6:30.

Admission is $10 and includes dinner, drink, dessert, and bingo.

No reservations are required.

For information, call 860-742-7696.

Sourdough starter

Manchester Public Library, 586 Main St., will sponsor a talk on sourdough starters Friday, April 1, at 3:30 p.m.

Participants will create a starter and discuss how to feed and store it.

Each participant will receive a Mason jar, rubber band, dough scraper, and flour.

Registration is required.

To reserve your spot, call the library at 860-645-0821 or go to: library.townofmanchester.org

HEBRON — It may be winter, but Michele Sinkez is thinking about spring and planting gardens — not just for her own enjoyment but to help bees, butterflies, and other pollinators do their work.

Sinkez is working on a plan to create a Pollinator Pathway by planting gardens of native plants at various locations in town to attract and support insects and others that are essential to the growth of flowers and food. It would be the first Pollinator Pathway in eastern Connecticut.

She first heard about the idea in September at Glastonbury’s Sustainable Living Fest. When she returned home to her own garden, she realized something was missing.

“I looked around and thought to myself, I had done a very aesthetic, nice job, but I had been totally missing the life force of these plants,” she said. “I said, my goodness, all I’m doing is trying to make something look pretty, but I had been totally ignoring its real function or what its function could be.”

A Pollinator Pathway is a pesticide-free corridor of two or more public or private green spaces created with the purpose of providing nutrition and habitat for pollinators through native plant species, according to the website

www.pollinator-pathway.org

The idea originated in Seattle with Sarah Bergmann, who conceived of it as part of an ecological design challenge. Bergmann looked at the earth as a “massive design project” and at humans’ relationship with the planet. Previous narratives of saving species are just too small, her website states.

Now it’s making headway in the state — first emerging in Fairfield County and moving northward. More than 20 towns, including Darien, Greenwich, Norwalk, and West Haven have taken on the challenge — registering their pesticide-free gardens and sharing photos and updates of their creations on the organization’s website.

“The way our culture is now — we are eradicating much of the land that pollinators normally find shelter and places to reproduce,” Sinkez said. “This process is all about connecting private and public gardens so that pollinators have a place to refuel.”

Many experts agree that climate change, deforestation, and widespread pesticide use is threatening pollinators, such as birds, bees, and butterflies.

The pollinators carry pollen grains, which fertilize flowers, leading to seed and fruit production, according to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’ s information on pollinators at

https://tinyurl.com/yy8j4rug

Bees are responsible for the majority of insect-driven pollination, and Connecticut is home to more than 300 species of bees, DEEP says.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 75 percent of the fruits and vegetables we consume require bee pollination.

Tomatoes, for instance, benefit greatly from pollination by bumblebees, which are used in greenhouses to pollinate crops in winter, DEEP says.

But pollinator species are in decline worldwide. In addition to bees, studies show that butterflies such as the monarch have declined by 80 percent over the last 20 years, according to Pollinator Pathways.

“It’s time to recognize that without insects, there would be no plants, without plants there would be no animals, without animals there would be no people,” Sinkez said. “Best we pay attention to the smallest among us.”

Sinkez, who is also a member of the town’s Green Committee, has been pushing to create a Pollinator Pathway in Hebron. This month, she pitched the idea to the Board of Selectmen, requesting assistance in funding the project in an effort to create awareness, purchase signs, and even a steering committee to oversee the project.

“Once everybody knows what’s going on, then people can realize that they can do it themselves,” she said. “We’d love for people to learn that there are alternatives to lawns and the benefit of planting native plants.

“It will give them a new purpose in gardening and change the way they look at beauty,” she added.

Sinkez told town officials that the project would minimize work hours and the maintenance of land, and encourage native plants. It will also encourage the removal of invasive species.

“The purpose of this is to work with the life forces of nature that are already there — everything’s there, we are just not paying any attention to it and if we pay attention to it, we can gain so much from it,” she said.

Sinkez has since been offered four sites in town — one near the Douglas Library, two off Route 85, and one at the Kinney Road entrance to the Raymond Brook Preserve.

“That’s where are hoping to have significant activity come spring,” Sinkez said.

Sinkez is waiting for approval for another plot in front of the Old Town Hall.

“We just need to take a breath, stop and look to see how alive our earth is by nature and stop throwing invasive, alien plants and chemicals in there just because we want it all to look like we know what we’re doing,” she said. “We don't, until now, maybe.”

Although the lead-water content at Gilead Hill Elementary School in Hebron tests below the legal threshold set by the Environmental Protection Agency, a group of residents is demanding that officials do more to protect students and others who use the building.

“There should not be one more day that families do not know that there is lead in that water,” resident Nichole Collins said. “We have not yet heard anything that the water is safe, we heard that it’s not illegal, but we have not heard that it is safe.”

Under the federal Lead and Copper Rule, which was enacted in the 1990s and has been revised since then, if lead-water concentrations in drinking water exceed a level of 15 parts per billion, there must be corrective actions to control corrosion and inform the public.

The Board of Education says an environmental consultant has provided an independent review of data samples from the school, determining that test results fell within the requirements of the Lead and Copper Rule.

In a letter released this month, the board also claims various samples at numerous entry points and locations throughout the school have been tested randomly over the last decade and at the entry point of the system, all of which have been in compliance with the EPA, some data showing no detectable levels of lead.

“No further action is legally required,” it states, noting that more testing will be conducted this month and that per Chatham Health District recommendations, flushing of all of the school’s classroom faucets has begun. The consultant will be doing over 150 samples, 75 twice at different points and point of entry, by or on Dec. 21.

The board is then expected to share the report with the community, in addition to holding a public forum to address concerns, Board of Education Chairwoman Heather Petit said Friday.

Russell Melmed, Chatham health director, in letter submitted during a Dec. 12 Board of Selectmen meeting says his independent review of the water sampling echoed the board’s claims that the tests are in compliance with EPA levels.

He states the highest levels of lead that were found were in room 27, which had 9.9 parts per billion, and in the music room with 4 parts per billion.

“The remaining sampling sites coming back at very low levels, around 1 part per billion,” he writes.

Melmed also says that even though the EPA set the maximum contaminant level goal of zero, it is not an enforceable level.

But none of this consoled residents who attended the contentious meeting.

Collins argued that “legal” does not necessarily mean “safe,” and demanded better communication between the school board, town officials, and residents. Collins said she reviewed the data and the situation is not as safe as the school board says.

“It doesn’t take a chemist to see that 60 percent of samples in 2011, 80 percent of samples in 2014, and 60 percent of samples in 2017 detected lead, some of them quite high,” she said.

According to EPA’s website, young children are especially susceptible to the toxic effects of lead, which even at low levels has be linked to damage to the central and peripheral nervous system, learning disabilities, shorter stature, impaired hearing, and impaired formation and function of blood cells.

Collins asked board members during the Dec. 12 meeting if they would drink the water at the preschool to Grade 2 school.

Board Chairman Daniel Larson was the sole board member to raise his hand. He said he would be interested in knowing how many other towns in the state have comparable lead levels.

A letter from resident Julie VanOstrand, who has a 6-year-old son at Gilead Hill who has been drinking from the fountains, said she’s frustrated because the school system was aware of the low levels of lead and did not notify parents. As a result, parents did not have the opportunity to act.

“In order to right these past wrongs, the parents of Gilead Hill, and myself, are willing to forgive the school system for not informing us of the lead and acting on it by testing for it properly if the proper steps to rectify this are taken now,” she wrote.

She suggested immediately shutting off water fountains, informing parents about the situation via email, flushing the system daily, and cooking with water from a different source.

“We put trust into our leaders in our community and our schools to always do the right thing. … I am concerned that there is any lead in those pipes at the school,” PTA President Katie O’Connor Hurley said. “Until we know 100 percent that there is zero lead in that water, shut them off. Let parents know that there is a potential that there is lead there. I know I made formula bottles in that school from that water.”

Resident Nicole Matthews, who has a 5-year-old at Gilead Hill, said the real issue is transparency.

“We are glad that stuff is being done, but the parents need to know in the meantime, you can’t wait for those results,” she said. “And I don’t think it’s being done proactively, I think it’s being done reactively.”

Town Manager Andrew Tierney said more sampling was to be done this week and the system was to be flushed again. But turning off water fountains needs a vote by the Board of Education.

During a Thursday school board meeting, members met for more than an hour with their attorneys, Shipman & Goodwin, during an executive session.

Ultimately, no vote was taken to turn off the water.

“Just so we’re clear, if we’re still allowing lead to be in the water and no active action of notifying parents, then we will go to the social media, we will go to the news sources … we will go to whoever we need to go to so that the parents know,” Collins warned selectmen.

School officials since have notified parents and guardians of the water sampling data and have given parents the option of sending in bottled water with their students. Also, the Parks and Recreation Department has disseminated information to its program participants.

“This is a contentious issue,” Selectman John Collins, who is not related to Nichole Collins, acknowledged.

He commended the efforts of the school system, namely the hiring of an independent consultant and flushing of the water system, and offered an assessment of the situation as an environmental professional.

“I do think the threshold concentration of 15 parts per billion is important, but it was never developed to protect human beings,” he said. “It’s not a health-based standard, it’s a practical standard, it’s a cost-based standard and it doesn’t protect children. So, I think our policy has to be going forward should be to reduce concentrations in a practical way.”

Collins said he’s spent decades working in environmental chemistry, earning a doctorate in the field with a focus on iron and transition metals. Collins is trained in human health risk assessment and started a remediation company, he said.

HEBRON — Town officials have accepted a bid by Norwich-based contracting company, Nutmeg Cos…

Collins has spoken out at town meetings, including the Hebron Elementary School Water Remediation Committee, which has recently accepted a bid to replace all of the pipes at Hebron Elementary where lead also has been found. He, too, said he’s frustrated, mostly by an inability to obtain water sample data from the school board.

HEBRON — The Hebron Elementary School Drinking Water Remediation Commission is going above a…

After several attempts, he ultimately got what he was looking for through a freedom-of-information request.

At the meeting, Tierney disagreed with some of John Collins’ assessment.

“The 15 parts per billion is the standard set by the state that the school has been reactive to, and up until recently they didn’t think they had to do anything other than that because they thought that was the compliance level,” Tierney said. “Zero percent lead is a goal, it’s not a standard or regulation. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t get there, but I don’t think the Board of Education at the time thought that they were trying to or supposed to get to zero lead."

He added, “Now that John has brought it to our attention, we all agree that no lead is good lead. Now they are going to work towards doing that.”