The Rotary Club of Easton will hold its 7th annual Flags for Heroes event during Memorial Day Weekend. On the heels of six successful years of raising nearly $200,000 and benefitting 30 different local hero-related organizations, the Rotary Club of Easton is again fulfilling its mission of “Service above Self.”

Flags for Heroes provides members of the local community a way to honor their personal heroes including family members, friends, veterans, active members of the armed forces, teachers, firefighters, police officers, or any other individuals who have made a positive impact on their lives.

The 1000 American flags, which stand 8 feet tall, can be sponsored for $50 each in honor or in memory of personal heroes and will be displayed at multiple locations around Easton with the largest displays at the Talbot Community Center and Black & Decker field. The deadline for sponsorship is May 21st.

Over the past six years, with the support of Easton’s mayor, Bob Willey, Easton Utilities, The Star Democrat, Talbot County Government, and countless donors, Flags for Heroes has presented donations totaling nearly $200,000 to 30 local community organizations, many of which provide service to veterans. Among the organizations who received funds were: Talbot Goes Purple, a substance abuse awareness program that engages the community and its youth to stand against substance abuse; Talbot Mental Health Association, which received funding for its Veterans Fund which assists Eastern Shore Veterans in need; Operation Open Arms, an organization that provides service men and women suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with vacations to Talbot County; Talbot County Paramedic Foundation, which received funding toward the purchase of life-saving equipment; Talbot Hospice, which received specific funding for veterans, who comprise 20 percent of the patients spending their last days at Hospice House and half of whom are in the low-to-no income category; Easton Civil Air Patrol, a volunteer organization and official auxiliary of the United States Air Force that follows a military-style program for cadets ages 12 to 21 who are interested in enlisting, entering a military academy, or perusing ROTC scholarship opportunities; Easton High School NJROTC; the Easton Police Department; the Easton Volunteer Fire Department; the Vietnam Traveling Memorial Wall, which received full funding to bring the wall to Easton; and many more.

For more information about Flags for Heroes or flag sponsorship, please visit www.flagsforheroes.org or call Jackie Wilson at 410-310-5664 and contribute by May 21st.

Emboldened by the success of its recent series of Discussions on Race, Third Haven Friends Meeting has added a fifth discussion to the series.

At 6 p.m. Friday, April 13, the community is invited to join the Quakers for a complimentary supper of soup, bread, fruit and nonalcoholic beverages in the Third Haven common room (parish hall), at 405 South Washington Street.

At 6:30, those in attendance will see Against All Odds: The Fight for a Black Middle Class. This documentary is written, directed and narrated by journalist Bob Herbert, an accomplished reporter who has worked at the New York Daily News, NBC and the New York Times. It examines the extraordinary difficulty African-Americans have faced in their efforts to establish and maintain a middle class standard of living. Nearly 40 percent of all black children are poor. And the black middle class remains proportionally much smaller and far less healthy than the white middle class. With a compelling narrative, dramatic historical footage and a series of deeply personal interviews, Bob Herbert shows why this is still the case a half century after the heyday of the civil rights movement, and more than a century and a half since the 13th Amendment abolished slavery.

Against All Odds traces the history of blacks in America, going back to slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Great Migration of 6 million people to northern cities during and after the Second World War in search of a promised land. Among those he interviewed are Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, the son and grandson of sharecroppers.
Herbert documents the obstacles that have held blacks back ever since emancipation: landowners who cheated their sharecroppers, company stores that kept them in debt, mass incarceration, segregation, discrimination, ghettoes, redlining, violence (including lynchings), inferior schools and chronic relegation to low-wage jobs.

“Against a backdrop of crime, poverty, violence and disastrous relations with law enforcement,” Herbert asks, “where does the middle class fit into this picture?”

Originally released just six months ago, Against All Odds is a hit with users of the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com). Out of a possible 10 points, they gave it a rating of 9.1.

Attendance will be limited, as in the past, to 50 people. So if you plan to show up, do yourself a favor and sign up. To register or for more information, contact Pete Howell at piratepete@goeaston.net or 410-924-5752.