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Author: haddonfieldtoday

Second resident tests positive

Camden County officials announced today that a second Haddonfield resident, a man in his 20s, has tested positive for new coronavirus. Haddonfield’s first case, a man in his 40s, was hospitalized last week.

Officials also reported Camden County’s first death, of a Barrington woman in her 80s.

Board of Ed to hold virtual meeting

In compliance with Governor Murphy’s new directive, the Board of Education will hold its meetings in a virtual format beginning this Thursday, March 26, and in the foreseeable future.

The March 26 meeting will be broadcast at 7pm on the district’s YouTube Live channel.

When it’s time for public comment, the district will provide on-screen instructions for how to call in via the broadcast.

COVID-19 is history. Let’s record it!

The Historical Society of Haddonfield has launched a story-gathering project called “Haddonfield Virus Year.” The Society is inviting its members, and members of the community generally, to contribute records of their experiences for posterity.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all of us,” says Dana Dorman, the Society’s archivist. “During this challenging time of school and business closures, social distancing, or even actual illness, we at the Historical Society can’t help but wonder – how will this experience be recorded for future generations?

“Start writing down your experiences,” Dorman suggests. “You can do this in any way that feels right for you: as a letter, as a diary or an activity log, as a string of sentences. If you don’t want to write, document your experiences in whatever other ways feel right for you: photographs, artwork, audio or video recordings, etc.”

Learn more — and sign up to participate — HERE.

Public Schools update

OFFICIAL from Haddonfield School District on March 23, 2020

On Saturday, March 21, New Jersey’s Governor Murphy announced a statewide “stay at home” order as of 9pm that evening.

This revised order prohibits all gatherings and directs the closure of “all non-essential retail businesses to the public,” with some exceptions. Here is the video of his announcement.

Here in Haddonfield, we will continue to provide the highest level of remote instruction possible, moving forward in compliance with Gov. Murphy’s latest directive.

In direct response to Governor Murphy’s message, we share the following important information with Haddonfield’s parents.

  • A stay-at-home lifestyle and remote instruction are likely to continue well beyond the original estimate of two weeks. We should plan to follow his directive until further notice and into the foreseeable future.
  • Beginning Monday, March 23, all school district buildings will be closed with these three exceptions:
  • Haddonfield students in need of a free bag lunch may still come to the Chestnut Street entrance (“the flagpole doors”) of the Haddonfield Middle School between 11am and noon, Monday through Friday.
  • Our technology team will be responding through email and phone to requests for assistance Monday thru Friday from 7am through 5pm. We will make every effort to assist any student technical issue remotely. If a face-to-face meeting is required, an appointment can be set for Monday through Friday between 11am and noon at the Middle School. See details for contact information below.*
  • The Board of Education building, closest to the Central school playground and PATCO tracks, will be manned with a skeleton staff from 9am to 2pm Monday through Friday.

As previously stated, as long as we are engaged in remote instruction, all athletics and extracurriculars are cancelled.

Please keep in mind the borough’s state of emergency: borough and school district playgrounds, fields, and courts are all closed.

Although we are working from home, we are committed to supporting you and our students. Teachers, EAs, principals, technology staff, counselors, nurses and others are available when you need assistance.

  • Your teachers have shared their office hours with you.
  • Our principals are a great resource for information:
  • To reach our technology department*, please email them at [email protected]. Provide your phone number in case a conversation is required. Someone will reply between 7am and 5pm Monday through Friday. If a face-to-face meeting is required, they will make those arrangements.
  • Please help us to communicate effectively. Check texts, voicemail, and email regularly. If you use social media, follow your school’s accounts and the district’s:
    • Twitter: @HaddonSchools
    • Facebook: @HaddonfieldSchoolDistrict

Finally, remember that we are all in this together.

Meals and resources for seniors

From Nancy McCrudden, Mabel Kay Senior Center Coordinator

The Camden County Division of Senior and Disabled Services will deliver meals to any senior in need. Seven meals will be provided per week, once a week. Drop-offs days vary by town. Call 856-374-6325 to make arrangements.

Seniors who are struggling to acquire essential supplies, prescription medication, travel to and from a medical appointment, or other critical assistance can call the Camden County Citizen Relief Emergency Worker (CREW) hotline, 8:30am to 10pm daily: 856-858-3220.

Church services go online

Haddonfield churches are adapting to the current disruption by livestreaming worship services on their websites, or via Facebook or YouTube.

  • Christ the King Catholic Church has its weekday 8am mass online. The Saturday evening 5pm service is also live streamed, as is the Sunday 9am mass. .
  • First Presbyterian Church is livestreaming its Sunday 10am service.
  • Grace Church in Haddonfield (Episcopal) has videos and online worship available on their YouTube channel and on Facebook.
  • Haddonfield United Methodist Church continues bringing its Sunday 9am contemporary worship service to Facebook Live. The 10:30am traditional service is livestreamed, and also available via Facebook.
  • Lutheran Church of Our Savior is livestreaming its Sunday 10:30am worship service on Facebook Live. 

Announcing: Haddonfield [dot] Today

By David Hunter, Publisher

In case you’ve ever wondered why there’s a dot between the words “Haddonfield” and “Today” on our nameplate – yes, “nameplate,” not “masthead” – here’s the answer:

In 2017, when we changed the name and format of “What’s On Haddonfield” to “Haddonfield Today,” we envisioned that one day there would be be a digital version of our new print publication.

That day has come.

If all goes well, Haddonfield [dot] Today (digital) will go live at about the same time that this issue of Haddonfield Today (print) arrives in your mailbox.[Saturday, March 21, 2020]

Initially, our goal is to enable the Haddonfield community to access – in one digital place – much of the Haddonfield information that currently resides in a variety of digital places. 

In that respect, Haddonfield [dot] Today will function as the paper does. We gather details about coming events from the borough, schools, community groups, congregations, sports teams, and the business community. We synthesize them and publish them in an attractive and user-friendly format that’s mailed townwide every two weeks, and placed at high-traffic locations around the town.

But Haddonfield [dot] Today will provide something the print version does not, and cannot: information about events that were created, or changed in some way, after the print version went to press. So it will be as up-to-date as … today.

In addition, it will carry some Haddonfield news, links to borough, school, and community sites, easy access to documents and forms, and connections to merchants, restaurants, professionals, and office-based businesses.

We hope you will check it out – on your desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. We also hope you will send us details of coming Haddonfield events, so we can publish them not only in print, as we have done for nearly 30 years, but now online, as well.

Inventing new ways to do what needs to be done

By David Hunter, Publisher

Meditation, it has been said, is the mother of insight.

One famous example proves the veracity of that proverb. In 1665, with bubonic plague running rife, a student at Cambridge University by the name of Isaac Newton retreated to his home in the countryside. Sitting under an apple tree in the summer of 1666, he reflected on what made an object at rest (an apple) move in a particular direction (towards the earth) when it broke free from the tree.

The rest is physics history – past, present, and future.

With schools, colleges, and universities around the world now closed, to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, students have an uncommon luxury: time to ruminate. Recognizing this, a professor of astronomy at Williams College wrote to the editor of The New York Times recently, expressing the hope that “the current situation leads one of today’s scholars to make a breakthrough” as consequential as Newton’s. Time will tell.

As meditation is the mother of insight, so necessity is the mother of invention. In an effort to grapple with new realities imposed by COVID-19, individuals, families, community groups, organizations, institutions, and governments around the world are, by necessity, inventing new ways to do what needs to be done.

So are businesses, including ours. 

To ensure that we at the Gumnut Group can continue to publish timely, accurate, and detailed information about coming events in Haddonfield, despite the certain loss of some advertising revenue to our print magazine, we’ve gone digital.

Our new digital product — Haddonfield [dot] Today – will not replace the printed product that Haddonfield residents and business owners receive in their mailboxes every two weeks. Rather, the print and digital versions will complement each other.

This is new territory for us. We’ve avoided the digital world for one very good reason: we’ve never been able to figure out how to inhabit it profitably. (Incidentally, we’ve never meet a publisher at the local level who has.) But, given the times, we have decided to try.

Perhaps the necessity of taking a novel approach in the current situation might lead to the invention of a new – and financially viable – way to spread the word about what’s on. Time will tell.

We hope you like what you see, and that you will send comments and suggestions for improvement.