The Sanatoga Post

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SANATOGA PA – Activities for western Montgomery County residents (and anyone else!) from June 11-13, 2010, and beyond:

These events have been added to The Post calendar.

Friday, June 11

A disc jockey will play favorite music from the 1950s through the current hit list during an adult dance party scheduled for Friday from 8-11 p.m. in Reflections at Sunnybrook Ballroom, 50 Sunnybrook Rd., Pottstown PA. Admission is $5 for persons age 21 and older. The doors open at 7:30.

The East Coast Tsunami Fest, a two-day rock hardcore, metal and punk music event, will be held Friday and Saturday at various times in the Polish-American Citizens Club, 328 High St., Phoenixville PA. Visitors must be age 21 or older to attend. Featured bands include Death Threat, CDC, Barricade, xRepresentx, Lifeless, Agitator, and Concrete Reality. An admission fee will be collected at the door.

Saturday, June 12

Bring an appetite for something sweet to the annual Strawberry Festival of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society on Saturday (June 12, 2010) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Sanatoga Chapel grounds, 2341 E. High St., Pottstown PA. Besides plenty of good things to eat, the day features entertainment by the O’Such Rhythm and Music Trio, and the Pottsgrove High School Show Choir. Several custom cars, provided by Blast From The Past of Sanatoga, also will be on display; and Sanatoga major league baseball legend Bobby Schantz will be in attendance to sign baseballs brought to the event by visitors.

Tours of gardens created by members of the Pottstown Area Garden Club will be featured this weekend, rain or shine, at various private homes and public spaces in the Pottstown PA area. Tickets for the tour cost $12, and its proceeds benefit a scholarship fund for students majoring in horticulture or related fields. Tickets are available for purchase at Bause’s SuperDrug Store, Boyertown PA; the TriCounty Chamber of Commerce, Pottstown PA; and Gwendolynn’s, Limerick PA. For more information, call 610-306-6949.

Soldiers of the 56th Stryker Brigade housed at the Spring City Armory will be recognized  Saturday for their service in Operation Iraq Freedom. The recognition ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the armory, Armory Dr., Spring City PA. Participants in the Pottstown Area Joint Veterans Council are anticipated to attend, and the event also is open to the public.

A chicken barbecue will be held rain or shine Saturday from 4-7 p.m. at the East Vincent United Church of Christ, 282 Hill Church Rd., Spring City PA. Dinner includes one-half chicken, baked potato, coleslaw, applesauce, roll, butter, a beverage of your choice, and ice cream. Tickets are $9 for adults and $6 for children age 12 and under. For more information or to purchase tickets, call the church office at 610-935-0224. Take-out orders will be available.

Sunday, June 13

“A Taste Of The Valley,” the food-sampling festival and fund-raiser that benefits the West-Mont United Soccer Association, returns Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to the West-Mont fields, 560 Royersford Rd., Limerick PA. Organizers say the day will be filled with fun activities for all ages, varied live entertainment, and the best dishes of area restaurants and vendors. Tickets for the festival are available on site.

The musical group “2nd Childhood” will be the featured performers during the free Sunday in the Park Music Series sponsored by downtown Pottstown merchants and others Sunday from 2-4 p.m. in Riverfront Park, College Drive, Pottstown PA. Visitors are invited to bring lawn chairs, blankets, snacks, Frisbees or other entertainment, and friends. For more information, e-mail Erika@galleryonhigh.com or Mike Holliday at actone19464@aol.com.

Photo from Clipart.com

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POTTSTOWN PA – The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has named Montgomery County Community College’s Children Center as one of 10 centers in the country whose early childhood education program excels in engaging diverse families.

The college won it award in part for it success in encouraging cultural diversity.

The college, which operates its West campus in Pottstown, joined nine centers Sunday (June 6, 2010) in accepting NAEYC awards for their outstanding programs during the opening session of its National Institute for Early Childhood Professional Development in Phoenix AZ.

To be recognized as exemplary, centers participated in an extensive application process. It included submitting detailed program information, participating in a conference call interview with NAEYC and then hosting a site visit, including meetings with parents and staff.

“Everyone found it to be reaffirming,” said Deborah Ravacon, who has been director of the college Children’s Center since 2002. “The parents, through their comments and praise, confirmed what the staff has been teaching and promoting.”

People know from the outset that diversity is valued when they visit the center, she explained. Handbooks, brochures and pamphlets are available in different languages. Parents, guardians and staff create posters using photos and information about the children and their families, traditions and cultures, which are shared with the class.

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SANATOGA PA – Carney music. The smells of popcorn and cotton candy and nature’s fertilizer (unappealing, maybe, but certainly part of the ambiance). Barkers calling, and rides waiting, and kids laughing and smiling.

The circus, specifically the Lewis and Clark Circus of Easley SC, was back in town Monday and Tuesday (June 7-8, 2010) with two shows nightly on the parking lot of Sunnybrook Ballroom, 50 Sunnybrook Rd., Sanatoga PA. A circus ticket-seller said attendance had been good for all performances. With it came all the trappings that make a big-top event so memorable for an audience: acts by acrobats, trapeze artists and clowns; fun food, thrilling rides, and exotic animals.

You couldn’t find a frown on the grounds.

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SANATOGA PA – State police in Maryland reportedly have arrested a man who admitted he was involved in the June 1 (2010) robbery at the Turkey Hill convenience store on East High Street in Sanatoga, as well as others in Limerick and Coatesville PA.

Readers following the continuing story should consider these resources:

• Suspect arrested in Turkey Hill robbery, shooting (WPVI-TV, Philadelphia)
• Suspect Busted In Robberies, Shooting (WFMZ-TV, Allentown PA)
• Philadelphia man arrested for Limerick Post Office and two Turkey Hill robberies (The Mercury, Pottstown PA)

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WORK CONTINUES TO LEVEL LAND WEST OF TURKEY HILL – Several pieces of equipment and a work crew of about a dozen people were busy again Tuesday morning (June 8, 2010) at 8:30 as they ground out tree stumps and continued preparations to level a vacant lot at 3049 E. High St., Pottstown PA. The property, being marketed by Tornetta Realty,  is anticipated for future commercial use and was once heavily wooded. Although no plans for the parcel have been formally introduced to Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township officials, concrete sewer pipes were visible on site. The lot is located near the Sanatoga interchange of U.S. Route 422, just west of the Turkey Hill convenience store.

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POTTSTOWN PA – More than 100 U.S. armed services veterans, Boy and Cub Scout troop members, and citizens who remembered all too well the horrors of wars past gathered Sunday afternoon (June 6, 2010) in Pottstown’s Memorial Park to both pay homage to the area’s Vietnam War heroes and to retire U.S. flags during a formal ceremony in which they were sectioned and burned.

• Watch a video, above, in which Frank Strunk, president of the Vietnam Veterans chapter of Pottstown, explains the day’s significance and activities; or see it at The Post’s YouTube Account.

Scouts cut the stripes Sunday from a 60-foot-by-40-foot American garrison flag in a formal flag retirement ceremony at Pottstown Memorial Park.

As the flag retirement ceremony dictates, stripes were burned separately from blue fields and their stars until the ashes of both were unrecognizable.

The 18th annual flag day and retirement memorial ceremonies -  sponsored by Pottstown Chapter 565 of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Pottstown Elks Lodge 814, and local scouting groups – included an honor guard provided by Brig. Gen. Elmer S. Friedberg American Legion Post 244 of Sanatoga.

The area surrounding the park’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial was quiet and respectful, even though it seemed activity was everywhere. As Chapter 565 conducted its honors for 25 area residents who were killed in action in Vietnam – including nine graduates of Pottsgrove High School – scouts and scoutmasters were busy on the memorial’s east side cutting, sectioning and burning old flags no longer in condition to be presented publicly.

Flowers are laid beside 25 flags representing 25 area soldiers killed during the Vietnam War. Of them, nine were graduates of Pottsgrove High School, eight from Boyertown, five from Pottstown, and one each from Owen J. Roberts, Oley, and Daniel Boone.

National flag etiquette requires such flags “be retired in a dignified way, preferably by burning” until the remains cannot be recognized. The ashes are subsequently buried, just as were those who fell in the flag’s defense.

Elsewhere in the vast acreage of the park, people fished or went swimming in Manatawny Creek. A few rode bicycles in the parking lots. A small group played basketball at a court near King Street. Kids cooled off in the adjacent Splash Park. For all that bustle, though, the only sounds sometimes heard were the “whoosh” of a breeze fanning the flames of the flag fire pits or the words of ceremony speakers echoing across the open lawn.

Flags are intended to be sturdy. Cutting them apart, even with scissors specially sharpened for the task, wasn't easy.

Stars and stripes in separate piles await the fire pits.

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Kids may be more ready than their parents for the big day.

SANATOGA PA – Friday (June 11, 2010) at 4 p.m. is the deadline to register kids ages 5-12 interested in participating in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township‘s annual fishing derby.

The derby, in which children not only have fun trying to pull big ‘uns from the deep but also get some constructive fishing tips too, is scheduled to be held June 19 (2010; Saturday) from 7:30-10:30 a.m. on Sanatoga Lake in the township’s historic Sanatoga Park, 100 S. Sanatoga Rd., Sanatoga PA.

The free event is sponsored by Wells Hoffman Holloway and Stauffer LLP, the law firm of township Solicitor R. Kurtz Holloway.

Sanatoga Lake will be “fully stocked” for the derby, township Assistant Manager Alyson Elliott reports, and adds that it’ll be a fine “way to enjoy a day in the great outdoors.” Prizes will be awarded to contestants in the following categories: most fish, smallest fish, largest fish, most unusual catch and first fish.

Advance registration is required. Registrations forms are available for download here, and can be completed and dropped off to the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA, before the deadline.

Check-in begins at 7 a.m. on derby day. Parents must accompany their children; sign them in before they can be allowed to fish; and be present throughout the event.

Photo from Clipart.com

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An artist's rendering of the facade for Bella Italia Pizza that will face East High Street in Sanatoga. Its owners are asking for variance extensions.

SANATOGA PA – Bella Italia Restaurant, the venue for pizza and Italian foods proposed to be located just west of the Rite-Aid Pharmacy at 2209 E. High St., Pottstown PA, has been scheduled for another hearing June 23 (2010; Wednesday) at 6 p.m. with the Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township Zoning Hearing Board in the municipal building on Buchert Road, Sanatoga.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

The site currently features rocks, stumps and open field. Work by owner Cilluffo Property Holdings LLC to clear the area was halted months ago by the township because its review and approvals process, of which zoning hearings are a part, was incomplete.

When the Bella Italia project first faced the hearing board last December, it received variances from the zoners to operate in what is a limited commercial and office district.

Those approvals, however, have only a limited life. Cilluffo is returning to the board to ask for an extension on the variance deadlines, according to an advertisement that appears this morning (Monday, June 7, 2010) in The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper, the township’s publication of record for legal notices.

The public may attend and, if desired, comment during the hearing.

Related:

• Owners Ask For Restaurant Variance Extensions
• Planners Hear More About Proposed Pizza Restaurant
• Pizzeria Owner Has History Of Restaurant Development
• Restaurant, Ringing Projects Win Conditional Uses
• Ringing Rocks, Restaurant Hearing Topics Tonight
• Pizzeria Planned Next To Sanatoga Rite-Aid

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Facing the remaining crowd Sunday morning in the stands at Pottsgrove High School, Relay for Life leaders hug each other for a job well done.

POTTSTOWN PA – In the final moments of the weekend’s (Saturday and Sunday, June 5 and 6) 2010 Pottstown Area Relay for Life – just as throughout the 24-hour fund-raising marathon itself – there were hugs and wet eyes and damp cheeks.

The leadership team of this year’s fight against cancer, which successfully collected hundreds of thousands of dollars to benefit the American Cancer Society, did its best during closing ceremonies Sunday to control emotions in addressing  crowd members who stayed right until the end. It wasn’t easy. Tears flowed. Speakers started, sputtered, stopped, re-started, then stopped again.

The people on stage had been though so much, audience members acknowledged with wave after wave of applause and cheers. They had spent the past 12 months planning details, finding sponsors, recruiting teams of walkers, publicizing and promoting. They had lived, breathed, eaten and slept “Relay” almost daily. Now, just a few minutes before 10 a.m. it was ending and they could rest and let a new team pick up the reins.

As the clock struck the hour, everyone who remained and who had the energy assembled on the red track ringing Pottsgrove High School’s Kauffman Road, Pottstown PA, stadium for a final lap. New leaders, departing leaders, spouses, friends, relatives, families, work colleagues: many were there. They came off the stage, and out of the stands, and stood together. Some held hands. Some daubed at eyes with tissues. Some laughed, giddily, ready to go home.

Assembled for the Relay's final round.

And as music played over the stadium speakers, they took a final lap into Relay history.

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BOY SCOUTS WASHED CARS SATURDAY -Chris Haslam, above at left, and Kyle Gawel, were busy Saturday morning though mid-day with soap, sponges and buckets, while Morgan Moonan, below, handed a hose during the spring car wash fund-raiser conducted by Boy Scout Troop 363 at the Sanatoga offices of Zuber Real Estate, East High Street. The troop, which regularly meets at St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, 927 N. Franklin St., Pottstown PA, earns some of the money for its many projects with a twice-yearly wash; the next will be in the fall. Working just as hard as the guys pictured, but not appearing in the photos, was scout Jacob Rulli.

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