Connecticut Postings

BRIDGEPORT –– The 33rd annual celebration by Bridgeport Black Pride of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will this year feature the Rev. James D. Peters, Jr., who both worked with King and preached in Bridgeport in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The event is set to begin Monday at 8:30 a.m. at Mount Aery Baptist Church, 73 Frank St.

Peters, the retired leader of the New Hope Baptist Church in Denver, was in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement of the late 1950s and the 1960s. He was at the founding meeting in 1957 of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and he worked directly with King during the marches in Albany, Ga., and in Selma and Birmingham, Ala. He also participated in the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963, when King delivered his “I Have a Dream’’ speech.

Peters was pastor of East End Baptist Church in Bridgeport from 1960 to 1973.

The two-hour celebration at Mount Aery usually attracts more than 600 people, including a number of VIPs from the region.

It will be followed at 10:30 a.m. by a community breakfast in the lower level of the church. Tickets for the breakfast are s $12 for adults and $7 for youth 17 and under. Tickets may be purchased at Ms. Thelma’s Restaurant, 140 Fairfield Ave., or by calling 203-526-8086. There will also be a coat drive during the event.

Today, NBC announced the cast for its latest installment of the Donald Trump reality show The Celebrity Apprentice, which includes comedienne and Trumbull native Lisa Lampanelli.

Dubbed the  “Queen of Mean,”   Lampanelli, who now lives in New York, has performed her raucous act in U.S. and Canada and recently appeared in her latest one-hour special “Tough Love,” which premiered on Comedy  Central and is now available on CD/DVD.

Logo  television has recently given a go to developing “Big Loud Lisa,” an  unscripted series, to be produced by Chelsea Handler’s production  company, that follow Lampanelli in standup as she and her husband Jimmy  juggle their recent marriage with her life on the road.  Lampanelli is  also currently working on a one-woman show for Broadway, with plans to  debut in 2012.  She will hit the big screen in October 2012 in a  yet-to-be-titled David Chase-directed feature film.

Lampanelli joined the ranks of comedy greats with her 2009 HBO  comedy special, “Long Live the Queen,” and that same year released her  first autobiography, “Chocolate, Please: My Adventures in Food, Fat and  Freaks.

The new season of Celebrity Apprentice premieres Feb. 12 on NBC. The rest of the cast includes supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, pop star Debbie Gibson, former “American Idol” runner-up Clay Aiken and IndyCar legend Michael Andretti. For more information, see NBC’s official Apprentice site, <a href=”http://www.nbc.com/the-apprentice/”>http://www.nbc.com/the-apprentice/</a> .

A local woman is accepting donations of blankets and toys for the area’s poor and homeless. The last Sunday of every month, Ann Marie Tarinelli of Trumbull serves meals under the viaduct on John Street in Bridgeport. For the holidays, she said, she’s also looking to distribute blankets to keep her clientele — many of them homeless — warm during the winter months, and toys, so they can have gifts for their families. Tarinelli said she has two big bins marked donations in front of her home.

If you are interested in giving, call her at 203-268-5553. Her meal program, which she’s officially named The Hidden Treasure Bistro, recently received tax exempt status.

Greater Bridgeport Transit is considering several service changes, one of which would eliminate bus 18, which serves Trumbull, as well as cutting the bus that serves the Trumbull Corporate Park.

Other changes would involve routes 5, 10 and 16.

“The changes are being planned to ensure buses operate on time and to provide access to new locations, but they also will reduce services in some areas,” said Doug Holcomb, the planning and service development officer for the transit system.

“With the last round of changes, riders had alternatives, but this time, some riders will be affected,” he said.

Holcomb said that the cuts are largely because of reductions in Federal Transportation Administration “job access reverse commute” grants. “In the case of route 18, there was a significant reduction in that grant,” he said.

Another major change would involve bus No. 5, which now travels from downtown to the center of Bridgeport’s Black Rock section. GBT wants to extend this service to the new Fairfield Metro railroad station on weekdays once it is open, and also change the peak period frequency interval from 20 to 30 minutes.

The new Fairfield Metro Station is expected to open in late October or early November, officials say. GBT officials say that bus 5 will begin serving the new station within a few days of its opening.

The proposed No. 5 route includes traveling on Black Rock Turnpike onto the train station access road and into the new parking lot, picking-up and dropping-off along the train platforms.

Route 18, which will be eliminated altogether, now serves Trumbull center, the Westfield Trumbull Shopping Mall and the Hawley Lane mall. Holcomb said that only a few dozen riders per day use that bus.

Other proposed changes include:

–– Route 10 Service from Fairfield Woods Road to Downtown Stratford. The change would move the Stratford end of the service from its turn-around at Main Street and Barnum Avenue to Beardsley Avenue and West Broad Street. Riders continuing can transfer to the Coastal Link and Routes 16 and 23 at this location.

–– Route 16: GBT proposes to end morning and afternoon peak service to the Trumbull Corporate Park. In addition, service to East Main Street, north of Wilcoxson Avenue and Main Street, north of Paradise Green would be discontinued with the bus being re-routed onto Wilcoxson Avenue. Route 16 will continue to provide local service to Stratford’s major shopping areas including Hawley Lane Mall, Stratford Crossing, Stratford Square, Paradise Green and the Dock Shopping Center.

The GBT staff will be at the following locations and times to discuss these changes. These will take place as follows:

–– Sept. 20, from 6 to 7 p.m. at Trumbull Town Hall Council Chambers, 5866 Main Street.

–– Sept. 21, from 6 to 7 p.m. at Stratford Town Hall Council Chambers, 2725 Main St.

–– Sept. 22, from noon to 1 p.m. at the Bridgeport Towers Community Room 199 Yacht St.

There will also be a public hearing on Sept. 27, from 6 to 7 p.m. in the GBT Bus Station 710 Water St. Bridgeport, second floor community room.

Also, riders can email comments to aaldrich@gogbt.com, or mail comments to: Greater Bridgeport Transit, Planning and Service Development One Cross Street, Bridgeport, CT 06610.

Comments should be sent prior to Sept. 27.

GBT has an annual operating budget of about $17 million and it has a fleet of 55 buses, of which a maximum of 45 operate at any given time. The fare is $1.75.

Youngsters at ABC Child Care & Learning Centerin Stratford recently learned about police work, stranger danger and bike safety from two Trumbull officers.

Officers Joseph Dzurenda and Robert Schwartz read the children a book about a police officer and his K-9 and allowed the youngsters to explore a police cruiser.

During a question and answer session, Manny Hernandez, a youngster in the pre-K summer program, asked the officers: “Do policemen kill monsters?”

An officer replied, “We definitely scare them away.”

The Connecticut Counseling Association will conduct a workshop on Friday, August 19, at the Trumbull Marriott, designed to enhance the skills of mental health professionals who have clients who were traumatized by the events of 9/11.

Topics will include compassion fatigue, vicarious traumatization, unresolved grief, and the process of moving forward.

Presenters include Connecticut resident  Mary Fetchet, founding director and driving force behind VOICES of September 11th. A professional social worker and former educator, Fetchet co-founded the 9/11 advocacy organization in 2001 after the death of her 24-year old son, Brad, in the attacks of the World Trade Center.

Other speakers include, Dr. Jane Webber and Dr. J. Barry Mascari, who are well-known for their presentations on disaster mental health and trauma counseling, sand tray therapy, counselor licensure, and school counseling initiatives. They are licensed professional counselors and hold New Jersey Disaster Response Crisis Counselor certifications. 

Webber and Mascari also co-edited the third edition of the American Counseling Association Foundation book, “Terrorism, Trauma and Tragedies: A Counselor’s Guide to Preparing and Responding,” and are primary editors of the New Jersey School Counselor Initiative’s second edition, “A Framework for Developing Your Comprehensive School Counseling Program.” They shared the 1992 ASCA Writer/ Researcher of the Year for the first edition of the book. 

For registration information, visit www.ccamain.com.

Above: Nick Garard of Trumbull and Nadia Andrianov of Shelton relax at Trumbull’s annual summer concert at Indian Ledge Park Friday, September 10, 2010. See more photos from last year’s summer concert here.

• Trumbull won’t announce who exactly will be performing at this year’s summer concert until July 14 because the contracts with the artists won’t be official until then. But we do know it’s going to be three well-known bands. We also know the concert will most likely be on Sept. 10.
• First Selectman Tim Herbst is organizing a day of prayer on Sept. 11 with local clergy members and all community leaders.
• Tony Horton, creator of the P90X home fitness program, is returning to his alma mater, Trumbull High School, on Sept. 17 to help raise money for the high school’s sports programs. In preparation, Herbst is going through the program himself. He is currently in week 3 and he has lost 12 pounds and gone down two belt buckle sizes.
• Herbst met with a film crew Thursday that wants to film a major motion picture in town. And it wants to cast local townspeople in the movie. Herbst said they asked if he wanted a small role. “If the elections don’t work out in November, I can always go into acting,” he said.
• Family Circle magazine named Trumbull one of 2011′s best 10 towns for families. Said one Trumbull resident: “Some people say New Englanders are chilly, but people here are warm and really help each other out. Trumbull is a jewel.”

Ann Marie Tarinelli used to laugh at those commercials that featured an older woman lying on the ground proclaiming “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
But the Trumbull resident isn’t laughing now. Tarinelli, who wouldn’t give her age but does describe herself as a senior citizen, broke her hip on Monday after falling down the cellar stairs of her home. Had it not been for a passing mailman who found her and called an ambulance, she likely would have died within a day.
Instead, she was recovering Thursday afternoon at St. Joseph’s Manor in Trumbull and credits both the mailman and the team at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport with saving her life.
Tarinelli said the spill happened during a routine trip to her cellar. “I go up and down my steps 100 times a day,” she said. “When it was built, the last step was made a little higher. I missed it and I went flying. The pain was like no pain I’d ever felt.”
Tarinelli lives alone, wasn’t near a phone and doesn’t wear a medical alert device that she could use to summon help. “I thinking that the worst thing that would happen is that I’d be down there a couple of days until a friend found me,” she said.
But within four hours, mailman Danny Derubis stopped by to deliver the mail. Tarinelli heard him and called up for help. Derubis came in, called for ambulance and waited with Tarinelli until it arrived. She had surgery at the hospital and is expected to be at St. Joseph’s for several months, but she’s alive — something she might not be if Derubis hadn’t arrived when he did.
Tarinelli said doctors later told her that the loss of blood from the broken bone likely would have killed her within a day if she hadn’t sought treatment.
In fact, according to the state Department of Public Health, falls are the leading cause of injury-related death for Connecticut residents aged 65 and older. Falls resulted in about 6,000 inpatient hospital stays and 24,000 emergency room visits among older Connecticut residents each year from 2005 to 2008.
Dr. Frank Scifo, director of urgent care services for St. Vincent’s, said Tarinelli was definitely lucky her mailman intervened when he did. “She was blessed,” Scifo said.
Incidents like this aren’t uncommon Scifo said, especially now that people are living to be older, and many older people live alone. Scifo said medical alert devices are a good option, but not everyone has one. For those who don’t, he suggests seniors designate a nearby “buddy” to check on them regularly. Also, Scifo said, don’t engage in any risky behavior when you’re by yourself if you can avoid it.
“Wait until someone is with you,” he said. “Most things can wait.”