4/4: Our 17th birthday with features on town green, highways, ACA

CONCEPTION: This drawing is a concept of how the Town Green at Peachtree Corners will look perhaps within a year. The design is by TSW, an Atlanta firm who worked on public spaces in Duluth and Lawrenceville. For more detail on this project, see Today’s Focus below.

Today marks start of 17^th year of GwinnettForum’s publication

Today the GwinnettForum begins its 17^th year of publication. It’s hard for us to believe we have been in publication for this long.. The publisher expresses thanks for continued support from its underwriters. They make possible this effort to educate Gwinnettians and challenge them to the possibility of innovative thinking. We also appreciate deeply our readers, who keep us alert and make significant contributions to Gwinnett’s world of information. It’s our privilege to send this out twice a week to you all. –elliott brack, publisher.

TODAY’S FOCUS: Architect Completes Design of Town Green for Peachtree Corners

EEB PERSPECTIVE: Highway Routings, Political Forums and a Jackson EMC Promotion

ANOTHER VIEW: Republicans Now Need to Fix What They Feel Is Wrong with ACA

SPOTLIGHT: Walton EMC

FEEDBACK: Those Old Rural Buildings Are Now Homes for Bats, Owls and Varmints

UPCOMING: Senior Connections To Recognize Levetts with Community Award

NOTABLE: Georgia Gwinnett Wins IIE’s Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation

RECOMMENDED: Sell Out  by Ebony Joy Wilkins

GEORGIA TIDBIT: Great Speckled Bird Has Amazing Run in Atlanta Newspaper Circles

TODAY’S QUOTE: For Some Matters, All You Need Is One

MYSTERY PHOTO: This Is Not Just Your Ordinary Victorian House

LAGNIAPPE: Plethora of Easter Egg Hunts Scheduled around Gwinnett County

CALENDAR: Pet the Cat’s Author Coming to Aurora Theatre

Architect completes design of Town Green for Peachtree Corners

By Julie Herron Carson, Peachtree Corners  |  This newest of Gwinnett cities is one step closer to beginning construction on a Town Green.

TSW, an Atlanta-based architecture, planning and landscape architecture firm, has completed the design of a signature community destination for the City of Peachtree Corners.  It will be on Peachtree Parkway near Medlock Bridge Road. The firm is currently working on the project’s construction documents.

The two-acre Town Green, the focal point of Peachtree Corners’ new Town Center, will include a large, active oval lawn, interactive water feature, a botanical garden and two open air pavilions including one with a stage.  The Town Center is being developed by Atlanta-based Fuqua Development in partnership with the Peachtree Corners Downtown Development Authority.  The project will break ground later this spring.

Landscape Architect Adam Williamson, senior principal of TSW, says: “The Town Green will be a gathering place where adults and children can play, relax and enjoy the outdoors. We’ve designed the active oval to be slightly sloped so it will serve as a natural amphitheater when the City presents concerts, festivals and other events, or shows films on a large outdoor movie screen.  The Town Green will include a splash fountain, playable art, a community garden, outdoor dining areas and a path through a Botanical Garden that will connect the Town Green to The Forum shopping center.

“What visitors might not notice, but is crucial to the Town Green’s viability, is a sustainable stormwater management system.  We’ve designed a rain-harvesting cistern and bioswales to collect rainwater as it is channeled away from the park’s surface and building rooftops.  The rainwater will be stored and used as part of the Town Green’s overall irrigation.”

Fuqua Development recently completed the purchase of a portion of the 21-acre, undeveloped site where the Town Center will be built, and announced Cinebistro as the Center’s anchor tenant.  In addition to the Town Green, the Peachtree Corners Town Center will include restaurants, ground-level retail shops, second-level office space, a veterans’ monument, and over 70 high-end, three-story townhomes to be built by Inline Communities, LLC.

Williamson adds: “Across the country, and especially in the metro Atlanta area, suburban communities are seeking to create walkable, mixed-use town centers. Public greenspaces are vital to these efforts, creating a sense of place.

“TSW has been involved in several park projects for neighboring metro Atlanta communities including Kennesaw, Duluth and Lawrenceville.  In a dense residential suburb, it can be challenging to find an appropriate, available location to create a park.  Peachtree Corners, which was incorporated in 2012, specifically acquired the 21 undeveloped acres at the heart of the city’s retail area for the purpose of creating a town center.  After several years of careful planning, the project is now ready to get underway.”

TSW is a full-service planning, architecture and landscape architecture firm.  The award-winning Atlanta company was founded in 1990 and specializes in sustainable community design, architecture and landscape architecture. TSW’s staff members are LEED Accredited Professionals and their designs incorporate a range of ideas for progressive energy and resource saving solutions.  www.tsw-design.com.

• Have a comment?  Send to:  elliott@brack.net

Highway routings, political forums and a Jackson EMC promotion

By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher |  Gwinnett motorists going into Atlanta will have to find new routing after a portion of the Interstate 85 collapsed last Thursday from a fire under the bridge. It drastically affected Express bus routes originating from Gwinnett.

GC Transit says that all Express bus routes from Gwinnett will not operated via I-85 to I-295 to I-20, with return buses  running in the opposite direction. Plan extra time for all Express trips.

• For a route schedule, click here.

TALKING ABOUT HIGHWAYS, many of you know that while Interstate highways are wonderful and usually faster to get anywhere, it’s often just about as fast and much less stressful to travel the back roads.  It’s especially great when you have a four lane back road.

Well, here’s good news if you are traveling on the west side of the state.

Georgia Department of Transportation has announced the completion throughout Georgia of U.S. Highway 27, all 352 miles of it from Tennessee to Florida. The missing link, a 24.6 section from south of Cuthbert in Randolph County, is now open. This road four-laning has been talked about since 1969, viewed as an economic developer for that part of Georgia. Now it’s a reality.

We’ve driven this road from Columbus to Blakely. For about 20 minutes on one drive, we saw nary an automobile. You can make good time, since you barely have to stop on this route. If you heading to Southwest Georgia, this is a good  alternative route for you.

POLITICAL FORUMS: For the serious political candidates, many of the political forums that pop up during the election season are virtually useless.  Here’s why: though the organizations sponsoring them are trying to promote interest in the election, few people attend these sessions. Seldom do you get as many as 50 people attending (other than media), and usually that is a high number. These forums seriously cut into the time the candidates have to spend politicking. They can usually spend their time far better than at these slack forums.

A good example may have been the forum in Cobb County last week where the 18 candidates vying for the Sixth Congressional District met.  Now really, each of the candidates ended up having only a few minutes to speak. Good meeting practices say that you want no more than three persons on a panel discussion. Don’t you know that all 18 were frustrated by this unreasonable session?

About the only time these political forums really amount to anything is when they are filmed or televised for much wider distribution. We urge any organization planning a political forum next year to find a way for wider distribution, since generally, few people ever hear of these meetings.

Lee

CONGRATULATIONS to David Lee who has been named Jackson EMC’s District Manager in Gainesville. He will replace Bill Sanders, who once was located in the Gwinnett office. Lee joined the utility in 1999 as a marketing representative in Lawrenceville and has been in its Gainesville office as a senior representative since 2005. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree and certificate in management from the University of Georgia, and expects to earn a Masters in Divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary in 2018.

Goodman

HAPPY 75^TH BIRTHDAY to Dick Goodman of Suwanee. Dick’s been most active as a Suwanee City Councilman and chair of the Board of Trustees of the Gwinnett County Public Library. He told us the other day: “….and I never did anything like this before I moved to Gwinnett 11 years ago.” Keep up your good work, Dick!

• Have a comment?  Send to:  elliott@brack.net

Republicans now need to fix what they feel is wrong with ACA

By George Wilson, contributing columnist  |  The Republican insurance plan, “American Health Care,” failed to pass. Now, instead of repealing   and replacing, they should get to work on fixing the things wrong with the Affordable Care Act and quit trying to destroy the plan as they have been doing. Let’s examine just areas where Republicans have tried to weaken the ACA (ObamaCare).

Several insurance companies quit the ACA exchange markets last year after congressional Republicans eliminated the additional payments the ACA had set aside for insurers while the individual market was becoming more stable, predictable and fair. Furthermore,  it should be pointing out,  these same insurance companies who abandoned the exchanges continued to reap big profits from the government’s Medicaid and Medicare programs, thanks in large part to the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid.

Perhaps the insurance companies would like to have the public option put back in the equation. After all, they did lobby to have it removed from the original ACA bill.

The Trump administration also deleted an advertising campaign to encourage people to sign up on the exchanges. There are other policy and administrative efforts that could be used to weaken and destroy ACA,

My point is the Republicans must now accept the full responsibility for improving the current health plan, ACA .They are now the majority and should try their hand at actually governing.

House Republicans delegated the drafting of large chunks of their American Health Care Act to insurance industry lobbyists. But the citizens saw this deception and voiced their outrage at numerous town hall meetings and by jamming the telephones of their representatives.

Finally, the state of Georgia ,if possible, should also move quickly to expand Medicaid our citizens deserve and have a right to health insurance.

• Have a comment?  Send to:  elliott@brack.net

Walton EMC

The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today’s sponsor is Walton EMC, which provides electric service to 70,000 Gwinnett homes and businesses in the Lilburn, Snellville, Grayson, Loganville and Dacula areas. Because its customers own the company, service — not profit — is Walton EMC’s primary focus.

• Contact Walton EMC at waltonemc.com, facebook.com/waltonemc or 770-267-2505.
• For a list of other sponsors of this forum, click here.

Those old rural buildings are now home for bats, owls and varmints

Editor, the Forum:

Let me agree with Brett Cochran’s letter wholeheartedly about the old abandoned rural buildings.   I love those old buildings, which give character to the landscape as we travel the back roads.

Most are homes to bats, owls and other varmints.  But once they were the things that dreams were made of.  People raised their families in those shanties.  Times were hard, but “at least they had a roof over their heads.”

During their hey-day, those old buildings were the homes and barns that made the South.  Shelter, hope and love lived in those decaying structures.

When my parents and I would drive to my Mama family’s old home place in Eastman, Ga., I would make up stories about the abandoned places we passed.  Those stories always championed the people who toughed it out and tried to make a home in that old Georgia soil.

Let the old buildings stay.  It says something about the history and longevity of the people who built them. Maybe it will help to educate those who take life for granted and don’t recognize that there was a life quite different than their own.  Who knows perhaps it will inspire some child to become a story teller?  And bats, owls and varmints do need a home.

— Marlene Ratledge Buchanan, Snellville

Recommends great links for rural areas of country

Editor, the Forum:

You are on target again about decaying buildings in rural areas, particularly South Georgia. It’s sad to see.  Remember old Florida tourist attractions? This site will jog some memories: LostParks.com.

I like back roads also and used to spend a week in the fall exploring the rural west. I’ve done this many times, usually the last week in September, and every trip was great.

Some great links include ColoradoGuy.com; DelsJourney.com; and GhostTowns.com. CumbresToltec.com on the Colorado – New Mexico border shows a nice narrow gauge train ride.

— Marshall Miller, Lilburn

Send us your thoughts:  We encourage you to send us your letters and thoughts on issues raised in GwinnettForum.  Please limit comments to 300 words.  We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length.  Send feedback and letters to:    elliott@brack.net

Senior Connections to recognize Levetts with community award

Betty and Gregory Levett

Senior Connections, a local non-profit organization providing home and community-based services to seniors in metro Atlanta and middle Georgia, will spotlight Gregory B. Levett, Sr. and Betty H. Levett, of Gregory B. Levett and Sons Funeral Homes and Crematory, Inc., as guests of honor at its 2017 Senior Prom, scheduled for June 17 at the Thalia N. Carlos Hellenic Center in Atlanta. The Levetts will receive Senior Connections’ 2017 “Community Connections” Award. This award, established in 2009, recognizes older adults who have been, and continue to be, outstanding business and community leaders, and who have given back significantly to the communities in which they live and work.

The Levetts opened the first chapel in 1980 in Scottdale, Ga., and have since expanded the business to include three additional chapels and a crematory in Lawrenceville, Conyers and Decatur. Mr. Levett is the chief executive officer of the company, and Mrs. Levett serves as vice chair on the board of trustees. The business now includes their three children – Bernard, Lanier and Deana – who are all active in executive capacities. The Levett family has donated over $1 million to various charities and organizations throughout their 35 years of service.Debra Furtado, chief executive officer of Senior Connections, says: “Both Gregory and Betty have a long history of commitment to the community. They and their children work to provide emotional support and care services to grieving families, exemplifying the dedication of giving back to the community through multiple generations. They express their love for others through the many Atlanta charities they actively support, including Senior Connections, for which they not only provide financial support but for many years even delivered meals in our Meals on Wheels program. We are proud to recognize Gregory and Betty as true pillars of the community who have a made a difference in the lives of so many.”

Time for vendor applications, sponsorships for Lilburn Daze

The Lilburn Daze Arts and Crafts Festival is now accepting vendor applications and sponsorships.  This year’s event will be held on October 14 at Lilburn City Park and will mark the festival’s 44th year. The Festival  features over 200 arts and crafts vendors, a variety of food vendors and kid zone featuring free art activities, a train ride, pony rides and lots of other fun for children.  With an estimated 12,000 attendees, this family friendly festival is one of the most popular in the area.  It is hosted by the Lilburn Woman’s Club and co-sponsored by the City of Lilburn.  Visit www.lilburndaze.org for more information.

Georgia Gwinnett wins IIE’s Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation

Georgia Gwinnett College is one of only eight colleges selected by the Institute of International Education (IIE) to be honored through its annual Andrew Heiskell Awards for Innovation in International Education.

Dr. Stas Preczewski, president, notes: “These are highly competitive, worldwide awards, and this is the first international recognition for GGC. Everyone associated with the college should be proud of this remarkable achievement.”

IIE’s Heiskell Awards showcase the most innovative and successful models for internationalizing the campus, study abroad and international partnership programs in practice today, with a particular emphasis on initiatives that remove institutional barriers and broaden the base of participation in study abroad and promote international teaching and learning on campus.

The awards honor the most outstanding initiatives in international higher education among the IIE’s membership association of more than 1,300 institutions. This year’s awards recognize five campuses with the Heiskell Award and three with honorable mentions. The winning campuses represent six U.S. states as well as the nations of Australia, Morocco and the United Kingdom.

GGC won an honorable mention in the Internationalizing the Campus award category for its “Internationalization of the Curriculum: Engaging the World to Develop Global Citizens” Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP).

The college’s plan enhances student learning and the student learning environment by creating internationalized courses throughout the core curriculum, majors and electives, as well as an elective Global Studies Certification including foreign languages, study abroad and a Global Studies Capstone course.

TouchPoint Medical moves from Oakbrook Parkway to P’tree Corners

Peachtree Corners is now home to the research and development division of a world-wide medical technology and manufacturing company.

TouchPoint Medical is a 118-year-old privately held company that provides mobile computing and Original Equipment Manufacturer solutions and mobile medical delivery solutions for medical professionals. The company, which has a global reach, relocated its R&D division from a 10,000 square-foot office on Oakbrook Parkway to its new 25,000 square-foot offices in the Northwoods office park.

Part of the company’s array of products, includes medication delivery and management systems such as automated dispensing solutions and ergonomic wall pointing solutions which provide easy access for health care professionals in accessing information and patient data.

TouchPoint Medical is a subsidiary of Concordville, Penn.-based TouchPoint, Inc. In total, Touchpoint companies have over 3,600 employees in 24 countries and serve over 80,000 customers in nearly 100 countries throughout the world.

Science WORKS at Gwinnett Tech draws record of 1,000+ guests

Gwinnett Tech’s fourth annual Science WORKS drew a record attendance of more than 1,000 guests Thursday evening as curious learners of all ages took the opportunity to experience hands-on learning at dozens of interactive stations across campus. Aspiring hairstylist, Erin Pavik from Norcross High School was excited to get to experience first-hand what it was like to take cosmetology classes at Gwinnett Tech.

Sell Out  by Ebony Joy Wilkins

Reviewed by Karen Harris, Stone Mountain  |  NaTasha is the only African American student in a suburban high school. She is well adjusted for the most part, but her spitfire Grandmother Tilly feels she needs to learn about her own roots.  NaTasha travels with Tilly to Harlem to spend several weeks helping out at Amber’s Place, a crisis center in the Bronx that helps troubled girls get their lives on track. She finds that she is completely out her element with her pressed hair, pearls and polished veneer that hide her own issues and complexities. Initially teased and attacked by the girls who resent her even being there, she gradually learns how to share her own confusions, including having her hair braided.  This fast moving, bold and gritty novel illustrates how middle class African Americans struggle with identity because of lack of acceptance from both whites and blacks who see them as ‘sell outs’ for their achievements.

• An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (100 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. –eeb

Great Speckled Bird was long-running alternative newspaper

Published in Atlanta from 1968 to 1976, the Great Speckled Bird was one of the longest-running and highest quality underground newspapers of the era. Reporting on both politics and popular culture, the Bird, as it was commonly known, linked left-leaning activists and rebellious youth throughout Georgia and across the South.

The Great Speckled Bird, named after a traditional folk song of the same name made popular by country musician Roy Acuff, originated among Atlanta’s small community of New Left activists, particularly those associated with Emory University. After publishing an anti-Vietnam War (1964-73) newsletter on Emory’s campus during the fall of 1967, graduate students Tom and Stephanie Coffin met that December with students from other local colleges, as well as with regional political activists, in the hopes of creating a multicampus underground newspaper. The talks resulted in the formation of the Great Speckled Bird.

The first issue was published in March 1968, and the newspaper became so popular with the Atlanta New Left and countercultural communities that within six months it went from being a biweekly newspaper to a weekly publication. A large part of its appeal lay in the variety of stories it published. While many other underground papers dealt solely with politics, the Bird also allotted space to the counterculture. A typical issue would contain a story about antiwar protests alongside a review of a recent rock concert. It frequently published articles on the women’s movement, abortion, racial issues, and gay liberation.

The organization and leadership of the newspaper reflected the leftist politics of the time. While editors reviewed and corrected stories, the decisions regarding which articles to publish were made during the weekly staff meeting, where a popular vote determined the paper’s content. Staff members would also rotate in and out of the various editor positions on a semi-regular basis. Former Bird staffers believe that this approach kept internal conflicts to a minimum while helping to maintain the high quality of journalism for which the paper became known.

The Great Speckled Bird staff relied on a network of volunteers to sell the newspaper on street corners, college campuses, and in high schools. The radical content of the paper and the “hippie” dress of the volunteers often led to harassment from local authorities. Atlanta police, for various reasons, arrested people selling the newspaper on street corners, on charges ranging from jaywalking to distributing pornographic material. City building and fire inspectors routinely visited the house on 14th Street in which the staff worked, and schools banned the publication from their campuses. In 1972 the Bird’s offices were firebombed.

By the summer of 1970 the Great Speckled Bird had become the largest paid weekly newspaper in Georgia, with a circulation of 23,000 copies. That number declined, however, over the next several years, and by 1976 the newspaper experienced severe financial difficulties. Several factors contributed to the Bird’s problems, including the disappearance of the Atlanta counterculture, the loss of advertising revenue, and internal squabbles among the staff.

Despite efforts to keep the newspaper afloat, the final issue was published in October 1976. During its eight-year existence, the Great Speckled Bird symbolized and spoke for the New Left and counterculture in Georgia and the Deep South. It maintains a place of significance in the story of America’s underground newspapers.

• To view the Georgia Encyclopedia online, go to http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org

This is not your ordinary Victorian home

Today’s Mystery Photo looks like an ordinary Victorian house of some years past. But it has significance. Just what do you think it is?  Send in your thoughts to elliott@brack.net and be sure to include your hometown.

A Mystery Photo thought to be easy but difficult in pinpointing the site proved to be relatively simple for several Forum readers from the recent edition. The photo was submitted by Jack Franks of  Hoschton.  First in with her answer was Debbie Krewson of Flowery Branch, who knew that “The photo is of Grand Teton National Park and was taken at the Chapel of the Transfiguration.”

Mark Barlow of Peachtree Corners was more specific: “It’s the Chapel of Transfiguration in Moose Wyoming, five miles north of my angle of Tetons!” he said, adding: ”My niece is getting married there in September!”

David Bell of Berkeley Lake had an even more solid reason for knowing about the photograph: “That is an easy one.  That’s where I was married.  It’s the Chapel of Transfiguration, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Moose Wyoming.  The Grand Tetons are seen through the window.”

Other recognizing the photo include Cindy Hall, Snellville; Mike Tennant, Duluth; and George Graf of Palmyra, Va., who gives us additional information: “The photo was made from behind the pulpit of the rustic log church of the Episcopal Chapel of the Transfiguration. According to deseretnews.com, the chapel is operated under the leadership of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jackson, Wyoming and is an operating church. Worship services are held there each Sunday, at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., from the end May through the end of September.  Weddings are also popular at the chapel, from Memorial Day through September. Constructed in the summer of 1925, the small, 85-year-old building was constructed from lodgepole pine. Its pews are made from local quaking aspen and can seat up to 65 people.  According to USAtourist.com., the Grand Teton Mountains are the youngest mountain range in North America.”

Plethora of Easter Egg Hunts scheduled around Gwinnett County

Easter Egg Hunts are scheduled in the next two weeks at many sites in Gwinnett County. Longtime residents of Gwinnett County recall memories of the late Archie McDaniel hosting an annual Easter egg hunt for the community of Duluth. Here children start on a previous hunt at McDaniel Farm Park. The Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center invites you to relive those past celebrations and welcome the spring season at its Egg-streme Easter Event at McDaniel Farm on Saturday, April 15. The event runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.   Many other egg hunts are planned throughout the county.

• For a partial list of other hunts, click here.

Retired Atlanta Braves’ Chipper Jones will be at Coolray Field in Gwinnett on April 8 at 5 p.m. The Gwinnett County Public Library will host his appearance. Tickets to the Gwinnett Braves’ game vs. Durham (at 6:05pm) must be purchased to access the book signing.  To get a signed copy of his book, Ballplayer, attendees must purchase the book from Eagle Eye Book Shop.  You may reserve a copy now, or Ballplayer will be available for purchase at the store or through their website, www.eagleeyebooks.com, on April 4.

11th Annual Supplier Symposium for firms wanting to do business with Gwinnett County. The symposium will be April 11 starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center.  Attendees will meet buyers and contracting officers from the Purchasing Division and other metro Atlanta agencies and take advantage of networking opportunities designed to create relationships.  For more information about the event and to register, visit this site.

Literary Summit at 10 a.m. April 12 at the Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC) Auditorium in Lawrenceville. Join Gwinnett County Public Library, in partnership with GGC, for a literary summit with bestselling author Thomas Mullen, author Richard Hoard, professor and publishing entrepreneur Dr. Steven Brown, author and CEO and founder of Deeds Publishing Bob Babcock, and Gwinnett Daily Post sports editor Will Hammock. For more information, please visit www.gwinnettpl.org or call 770-978-5154.

Ribbon Cutting and grand opening at 4 p.m. April 12 for new Eastside Urgent Care Center, at 3641 Centerville Highway, Snellville. For more information, email Hope.Moeck@hcahealthcare.com.

(NEW) Social Media Marketing Workshop, on April 13 at 6 p.m. at the Grayson Branch of the Gwinnett County Public Library.  Learn how to market your business and gain attention through the use of social media sites.  This workshop will cover basic strategies you can use to drive traffic to your website and more effectively promote your products or services.  Workshop topics include website design and strategy, branding, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. For more information, please call 770-978-5154 or visit www.gwinnettpl.org.

(NEW) Pete the Cat’s Author, Eric Litwin, will be at the Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville on Saturday, April 15, for two shows, at 10 a.m. and 11.30. Litwin is a “guitar-strumming, book-writing, harmonica-blowing, banjo-picking, song-singing, five-time national award-winning, folksy, fun type guy.” Join Gwinnett County Public Library for a delightful morning.  All ages are welcome.  Books will be available for purchase and signing courtesy of Books for Less.  Tickets are $7.00 each for ages two and over.  Tickets available at www.auroratheatre.com.

(NEW) Developmental Disabilities Benefits Workshop will be April 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Five Forks Branch of the Gwinnett County Public Library. It is sponsored by Gwinnett County Public Library, in partnership with All About Developmental Disabilities. If you are the parent or caregiver of a child who is approaching 18 years old and living with an intellectual/developmental disability, this is the perfect time to explore resources that promote greater independence.  This workshop will provide you with hands on instruction for family support services, DD/ID services, Social Security benefits, Medicaid waivers, transition planning, and more. Be sure to bring copies of your child’s IEP, transition plan, psychological evaluations, and medical records. For more information, please visit www.gwinnettpl.org or call 770-978-5154.

(NEW) Free recycling in Lilburn is coming soon.  Each year the City of Lilburn asks a variety of recycling vendors to offer their services at one great event — the Great American Cleanup. This year’s event will be Saturday, April 22, from 8 a.m. until noon in the Greenway parking lot across from Lilburn City Park. This is an opportunity to clean out your garage, filing cabinet, etc.

(NEW) Community Clean-up in Peachtree Corners will be April 22. Join with the United Peachtree Corners Community Association and Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful in making the city more attractive. Volunteers will work in small teams alongside city officials to clean up various litter and illegal signs around various roads in the city of Peachtree Corners. All supplies including bright safety vests, gloves, bags, large grippers and water will be provided. Adults and children 12 years old and older (accompanied by an adult) are invited and encouraged to participate. For more information or to organize your subdivisions group, please contact Matt Lombardi at mattlombardiupcca@yahoo.com

HANDYMAN SERVICES: Whatever your home maintenance problem is, Isaias Rodriguez can help. An experienced painter, he is dependable in installing or repairing siding, gutters, ceramic tile, plumbing, garage doors, or any other problem around your home. He’ll even fix your bike! He is originally from Mexico and has been in Georgia since 1996. He is legally allowed to work in the United States and is insured. Give him a call at his home in Norcross at 404-569-8825 or email him at rodriguez_isais@yahoo.com. Visit his Facebook page at Neza construction and home repair to see some of his past work.

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