President's Notes

Let me start by thanking so many of you for coming to the Holiday Party at Fernwood. It was a lovely evening of making new friends and catching up with old ones. Our speaker, Dr. Tiffany Bohm from Lake Michigan College, was very inspiring

and sparked many good conversations. Thanks, too, to those of you who made donations to LWV-BCC that night. We greatly appreciate your support.

February is here, and it is time to talk about LWVBCC plans for the spring. First is a luncheon meeting at Papa Vino’s in St. Joseph on Tuesday, February 20, featuring the executive director of "Neighbor by Neighbor" as speaker. You will find the flyer in your inboxes over the next few weeks, and it is posted on our website. Please RSVP as soon as you can. Second, in April we will have two events: 1) a luncheon meeting at Love Park with Lamanda Hilty, naturalist, filling us in on all things Berrien County Parks, 2) an evening meeting at LMC on Tuesday, April 30, featuring Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (watch your inboxes for details), and 3) plans are in the works for the Spring High School Voter Registration Days:

There will be specific dates at the end of April for which you can volunteer. Contact Mary Beth

Mullenholz mbmullenholz@gmail.com, to let her

know you would like to help. She will also help you

get set up to register voters at a high school near

you that may not be on our list.

You may have seen notices about volunteering to help at the polls on early voting or election days. There is general information on the LWVMI website about what you can do to help. For the most up to date Berrien County information on helping at the polls, visit the Berrien County Clerk’s website – http://berriencounty.org or call Sharon Tyler, County Clerk, at 269-983-7111. Also check out our website for information on dates, times, and locations for the February 27 primary election.

Michiganvoting.org has a detailed summary of all things Prop 2 – Early Voting, Absentee Ballots and Mail In Ballots, etc.

Items to note from League Links: 1) Information about being an observer for the Board of Canvas-sers on LWVMI website,

2) The Associated Press Voter Turnout Pilot Project is tracking voter turnout in the country. You can volunteer to participate in this project by sending an email to the AP with your name, your municipality and your precinct number to MITurnout@ap.org. Reid Magney, the project coordinator, will then confirm your participation and send you detailed instructions shortly before the election. 

3) The Advocacy report has an excellent review of what’s been going on in the legislature – March 7 Zoom meeting to talk about the review – more details from LWVMI to follow,

4) Action Item – LWVMI is urging members to contact Congress members and the President -- urging them to shut down Enbridge Line 5. Go to lwvmi.org and click on Take Action. At the January Board meeting, we discussed some ways to grow our League and to make space for more of you to get involved. One of the ideas proposed was to establish a programming committee that would work with the Board to propose and plan future meetings. The Board would like to give members an opportunity to support our mission by suggesting topics and speakers and making the plans for the event. Please contact me -- fschoon@mac.com -- for more information. Be sure to continue to tell your friends and family about the League and invite them to become members.

Thank you to all renewing members. We greatly appreciate your dedication to keeping the League of Women Voters of Berrien & Cass Counties an important part of our community. One last word. I found the information below in the Dearborn League's newsletter and thought I would bring it to your attention. Quite a few people have mentioned it to me as being a good program to watch.

On January 2, PBS presented A Citizen's Guide

to Preserving Democracy. On January 2, PBS presented A Citizen's Guide to Preserving Dem-ocracy. The program was based on Richard Haas' best-selling book "The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens." Through interviews and real-life examples of tenets like "Be Informed," Re- ject Violence"; and "Stay Open to Compromise." Hari Sreenivasan and Dr. Haass explore how Americans are working towards strengthening democracy and renewing engaged citizenry. The first segment showed parts of a Civility Project event at Henry Ford College in the fall.  Watch it here. In League,

-----Faith Schoon – President, League of Woman Voters, Berrien/Cass Counties

Book Club

The LWBCC’s Book Club met on Monday, January 29 at the home of Gloria Weberg. The January Book Club’s selection was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, a 2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner. There was universal agreement among attendees that they would not only recommend the book to others, but were pleased with themselves for reading the

beautifully written intense, modern reimagining of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield. .

Demon Copperhead, set in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia, is a commentary on the US foster care system, teen pregnancy, institutional poverty, and the US opioid crisis. (Last year, opioids were involved in more than 80,000 overdose deaths.)

Kingsolver’s book seizes from its opening line upon her fury at the now well-documented role big pharma played in the creation of the opioid crisis. She compassionately writes on the difficulties of the young lead character in the book, and she leaves readers with an understanding of the true nature of resiliency.

Above and to the right are the dates we will be meeting and the books the LWVBCC Book Club will be reading. Please join us.

Environment Report:

Going Plastic Free

In the February issue of Consumer Reports, there’s an article I found to be interesting and somewhat scary but important to share. The article included information on how plastic chemicals get into food, why it’s a problem, the risks with even low levels of harmful chemicals, and what needs to be done. Think about the journey of our food from source to processing to packaging to store shelves. There’s a chance at every step for plastics to be added by the time the food is consumed.

Here are some ways to eat less plastic:

1. Avoid plastic food storage containers

        2. Steer clear of fast foods.

        3. Limit high-fat foods.

        4. Eat fresh, minimally processed foods.

        5. Choose wood, stainless steel, and silicone for kitchen tools.

        6. Use bottles made of glass and steel.

How to reduce plastic in your world:

        1. Go fragrance free

2. Open your windows to ventilate. Phthalates can be in your furniture, shower curtains, and flooring and accumulate in household dust.

3. Refuse paper receipts.

4. Limit your use of vinyl

The article also included the results of testing numerous foods and the total amount of phthalates per serving. To view the entire article, you may have to subscribe to Consumer Reports.

https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the-plastic-chemicals-hiding-in-your-food-a7358224781/ --- Carla Ripley

Opinion: I feel frustrated that the responsibility for being plastic free in order to help our environment and well being has been placed on the consumer. But "Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out" --- Robert Collier