Doggone Good Summer Fun for our Best Friends

The day after the inauguration, Maldonians recognized each other as they traveled the subway to congregate with an estimated crowd of 175,000 at Boston Common followed by a march for unity, in protest of the new president and anticipated policy changes. On Jan. 21, 2017, many Maldonians rallied at the Boston Women’s March for America, representing their families and community groups.  People packed the MBTA Orange Line cars at Oak Grove and Malden Center.  They admired each other’s signs, took photos, shared smiles and geared up for the day. On the train platform, Helen Weitz said she was there to march against President Donald Trump’s disrespect towards women and other cultures.  She expressed shock at the electoral results and that attending the march was for self-healing. Maria David, another protester, agreed with Weitz’s comments. “I don’t agree with his politics or rhetoric. That has angered me.  But, I don’t want to be angry.  I want to move past that. I am hoping that this march helps us to unite and become more of a healing […]

  Once a place to be avoided, Miller Park in Malden has become an oasis for family fun. This became evident on June 3 when the second annual Bubbles & Books event brought hundreds of children and their families to the park to enjoy a puppet storyteller, giant bubbles and free (gently used) books. The event was hosted by Malden Kiwanis in collaboration with Malden Reads. “It felt like Christmas in the spring!” said Erga Dormevil, a Malden resident and mother of four school-age children. She added, “A book is a priceless gift for people of all ages and this event provided families with a chance to enjoy quality time together in a beautiful park. The outpouring of support from our community in the form of book donations was both heartwarming and amazing.” Robin Jorgensen, immediate past president of the Malden Kiwanis Club and a primary organizer of the event, said, “Our first year [last year] we had a great turnout. But I think our numbers nearly doubled in size this year!” The number of book […]

By Bryan Liu In an empire of sawdust, a jungle blooms. Malden High School’s makerspace is a warehouse-sized engineering classroom that doubles as a fully-stocked workshop for hands-on STEM-based extracurriculars — but against the windowsill, a row of lush hydroponics sticks out like a sore thumb — a green one.  This is where Malden’s Youth Community Garden trains in the off-season.  Malden High School Senior, Jadelini Mora, explains that the makerspace is the perfect nursery for plants to mature indoors during the colder months until it’s warm enough for them to be moved into one of 23 planting beds that make up the garden outside. To expand their planting space, the club built a greenhouse in April. It’s somewhere between professional and DIY.  The thermal ‘greenhouse effect’ owes its namesake to the sheets of UV-resistant plastic affixed with only a mile of duct tape and several elbows’ worth of elbow grease. The layers of tarp are just translucent enough to glimpse the sun-kissed gloss of green-ish horticulture from a distance.  Now the club can garden […]