The Shadow
Dear Editor,
In recognition of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month in March, Alleghany Highlands Community Services hosted a “Together, We Have No Limits” Basketball Tournament and Shootout at Edgemont Primary School gymnasium.
The event was a partnership between AHCS, Special Olympics, student-athletes and volunteers to provide an inclusive tournament showcasing the abilities of all participants. Entertainment was provided by the Ultimate Dance Explosion and our very own Pop Rockers.
An educational health fair was set up outside the gym with multiple community partners, including Safe-home, Alleghany Highlands CSB Developmental Services, Healthy Youth Coalition, Career Support Services, Special Olympics, Darby’s Dancers and Autism, Faith, and Worship.
AHCS would like to thank the community for the overwhelming support in this endeavor. We appreciate the Covington City School System for allowing us to use their gym for the venue and the volunteers and student-athletes that participated in the tournament and shootout.
We were pleased with the overwhelming support from our community in donating prizes for the shootout. Some of the awards included gift certificates to multiple restaurants, spas, and salons, auto repair shops, and lumber/supply stores throughout Covington and Clifton Forge.
The event brought in monetary donations of approximately $700. We are proud to announce that half of the donations were given to Area 18 Special Olympics. AHCS will utilize the remaining funds to support community engagement opportunities for individuals with disabilities.
Thank you to our community for supporting the event to bring about awareness. AHCS believes it is important to recognize each person’s ability and not their disability.
By placing the person first, we start to recognize the unique talents that everyone offers, and we can truly start to create an inclusive community.
Sincerely,
Angela Goodbar,
Director of Developmental Services Alleghany Highlands Community Services
————————————————————-
Dear Editor,
It is worth noting that in societies where slavery has been legally permitted, a slave owner has been able to free one of his slaves by a formal legal act of manumission.
Sadly, this practice has not only been reinstated in New York. Soon afterwards, it was also proposed by Governor Northam for Virginia, with the vigorous support of Planned Parent-hood.
We should note that, in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decisively determined that a baby definitely becomes a legal person with civil rights after it is born. But the infanticide law in New York was passed on the premise that, contrary to the clear prohibition against slavery in the Thirteenth
Amendment, a newly born child is, de facto, to be legally treated as the property of his/her mother until the mother makes a formal act of manumission.
Until such an act is made, the baby, although a legal person, is to be treated as merely her property and thus, like the slaves in the Old South, may be destroyed at her discretion.
And, just as in the Old South, the commonwealth of Virginia provided legal cover for a slaver owner who killed one of his slaves, so now our governor wants to institute “short term slavery,” so as to provide legal cover for a woman to kill her newly born “slave.”
As bad as this is, what is even more disheartening is the way so many, even among those descended from slaves, are embracing this establishment of “short term slavery”, in order to legalize infanticide, as an act of “social justice.”
Sincerely,
Fr. Tom Collins – Hot Springs
