What is the best way to prevent crime?  Porch-front security.  When you talk to and get to know your neighbors, you and they feel more responsible for what goes on in your neighborhood.  The simplest way to do this is to introduce yourself to your neighbors and communicate. Take them a plate of cookies and say hello.  Once you feel you can trust your neighbor, give them a spare key to avoid getting locked out of your home and do the same for them. When I go out of town, I tell my neighbors, so they can report suspicious activity and bring in the mail and newspapers. You can also call the local police and let them know to watch for anything unusual at your house.  If you have a driveway, ask your neighbors to park there when you are away, so it looks like someone is living at the house.

     On Tuesday, August 3, 2010, from 6-9pm at the Aspinwall playing fields off Field Avenue, you will have a splendid opportunity to get to know your neighbors.  Aspinwall Neighborhood Watch (ANW) along with the National Association of Town Watch (NATW) is sponsoring this event as part of the 27^th annual National Night Out to help you get to know the people who live right next door to you and your local emergency support. 

     At the field to help celebrate National Night Out will be the:  multiple emergency vehicles including a helicopter, the K-9 unit, a 911 emergency mobile practice phone for kids, child ID kits, and a karate demonstration by Young Brothers Tae Kwon Do.  The Kelsey Friday and the Rest of the Week band will put on a concert sponsored by MedExpress, so be sure to bring a comfortable chair from which to watch.  Kids will relish the Bounce Castle, food treats, face-painting, temporary tattoos, sidewalk chalk, the free crayons and coloring books.  Other fundraising activities  include:  caricature artist, dunk tank, glow sticks, and a 50-50 raffle. Please leave your pets and cigarettes at home.  Gate tickets: $10 per family, $5 for individuals. 

     The second best way to prevent crime:  Lights and Locks.  As part of NNO, please be sure to lock your windows and doors and to turn on your outside house lights.   To show your NNO and police support, please use a blue light bulb. Blue lights can be purchased by sending an e-mail request to:  Aspinwallneighborhoodwatch@gmail.com

     Kids, always tell an adult: 1.) Where you are going; 2.) If you see anything unusual in your neighborhood; 3.) if strangers offer you treats; or 4.) If something scares you.  Remember to Dial 911 in an emergency.  For fire safety learn to: Stop, Drop, and Roll.  Be sure to tell your parents to learn your neighbors’ names.

     To learn more about NNO: visit nationalnightout.org

To learn more about ANW whose mission is to sustain a safe, informed, and connected Aspinwall through community initiatives and outreach, please visit the ANW website at http://sites.google.com/site/aspinwallpa/ or send an e-mail to the address above.

     Looking forward to meeting you, neighbor, at National Night Out on the fields of Aspinwall, Tuesday, August 3, 2010 from 6-9pm.

     Many of the best qualities of Aspinwall revolve around its size and walkability.  Among Pittsburgh's many communities, few are as easily walked, with as many wonderful locally owned businesses.  Unfortunately, Community Swim Club is not within this walking range, except from the 500 bus, delivering to the bottom of Powers Run Road, after which you would need a swim!  However, I like to think CSC helps create its own small Aspinwall-like neighborhood in O'Hara, and many Aspinwall residents are integral members of the CSC community. 

     My family is lucky enough to live right behind the swim club. We worried at first, when we moved here five years ago, about having our backyard facing such a busy spot, but CSC is a great neighbor.  We moved here from the bustling, tightly knit neighborhood of Hyde Park, Chicago, where it is aptly said that one can neither hide nor park.  Though I was glad to be leaving the big city, I worried about moving in and having to make friends in a Suburb.  Suburbs like Fox Chapel and O'Hara have the reputation of being impersonal, places where neighbors all have their own yards, so their kids don't have to play together.  We were leaving a city where everyone played at the playgrounds and in apartment courtyards, because single-family lawns were hardly big enough to mow, much less build swingsets and play structures.  Here, I knew there were playgrounds, but did people play in them?  Where would we make friends, and what places would we go, knowing that a good friend would be there or would show up soon?

     Within two weeks of our first summer, walking into CSC as guests while our application was processed, we had started finding familiar faces, people I was glad to see, even while I was still a bit foggy on everyone's names.  We became members, and by the end of summer, we had friends we knew we'd see at school.  Throughout our first winter, despite regular trips to the library and Boyd community center, I still felt lost in the large and bustling O'Hara Elementary social scene, but the pool friends seemed to be for real.  One dad I'd talked to a few times, who I saw that first lonely November during a trip to Giant Eagle, waved to me and said loudly "I almost didn't recognize you with your clothes on!"   The laugh lasted me a good while, and when CSC opened again our second summer, I felt more at home in Pittsburgh than I had in months.

     Like any community, CSC has its own personality.  I like how many of the teenagers find their own way there, on foot, many walking through our yard, but retired, senior members also walk through our yard, sometimes leaving cherry tomatoes for our daughters en route.  CSC poolside is not about bikinis or tans, but about shared laughter, shared food and drink, and the relaxation of walking in the gate and feeling like we belong there.  The swim team record has improved dramatically over our years here, the spirit of fun has been present through winning seasons and losing ones both (with a dynasty of Langue brothers setting a great tone in the head coach position).  The lifeguards, like all teenagers, probably have private lives I don't want to know about, but at the pool they're great role models: friendly with kids of all ages, safety conscious, friendly with each other, fit and responsible.   I know who is likely to bring what drinks, who makes funny announcements for birthdays and other embarrassing occasions, and who else likes to show up on rainy days and swim when the pool is quiet.

     And although CSC isn't a public pool, I think of it less like a country club and more like a co-op.  We, the members, own it together.  We take care of it, and sometimes each other.  We work together, we invite friends, we play together, and we celebrate together.  For the weeks between Memorial Day and Labor Day, we have a community where we're all welcome, to enjoy the weather, the time away from school routines, and the companionship.  And we're all the healthier for it, even if we only occasionally swim a lap.

     Nancy Gift is the author of A Weed by Any Other Name and maintains a blog at http://weedsandkids.blogspot.com.

     Being a responsible consumer means buying local. Whether you have a favorite farmer’s market or grow your own, the benefits are immense and far outweigh any convenience a so-called one stop shopping store has.

     A locavore is a person who takes advantage of farmer’s markets to purchase their goods and sometimes even services. Locavores know how important buying local is and have committed themselves to buying as much as possible as close to home as possible. They know that the advantages to being a locavore far surpass any ease you search out from convenience stores.

     There are plenty of reasons to buy local, we have put together just a few:

More variety

     When you buy from local farmers you don’t just get peppers; you get semi sweets, bells and bananas, hot, jalapeños etc. Local farmers are free to be creative in their choices regarding what they grow. You may just get tomatoes at the super market, but at the farmer’s market you can find heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and an assortment of others. Not sure how to prepare that squash? Just ask a farmer, or more accurately, the farmer’s wife! She is sure to know the perfect recipe to be enjoyed by all.

Keep local money in the community

     It is estimated that every dollar spent in your local community generates double that in local income. The local economy reaps more rewards from small farms because the farm is more likely to re-invest their profits in other local businesses when they need seeds and other necessities.

Community awareness

     When you buy local you get a sense of community that you can’t get from buying food at your local supermarket. Spending time in and around a farm is an appealing and unique way to form lasting relationships with your neighbors, friends, family and farmers. Many small farms have activities such as hayrides and festivals as well as days you can actually tour the fields where your food is grown. Bringing children and grandchildren to a farm is a memorable way to teach nutrition and hard work.

Safe food

     There are various steps that food from the grocery store goes through before it reaches your table. When you limit those steps you also limit your risk of food contamination.

Less environmental impact

     In general, our food travels almost 2000 miles to get to our table. Most of that travel is done on a plane or truck which deepens our dependence on petroleum. When you get produce from your local farmer you cut your “food miles” down almost completely.

Seasonal food is always new

     Think about how refreshing an ice cold drink is in the middle of a hot summer day. It’s the same idea with a farmer’s seasonal harvest; a freshly picked ear of corn is much more enjoyable when it’s the first of the season and you haven’t had one all winter.

Fresh food is more nutritious

     Fruits and vegetables that were freshly picked ripe are infinitely more nutritious that anything you can find in your local store’s produce department. Food that is picked green, packaged, shipped, stored and finally sold has so little nourishment that you are better off not eating it. In order to be healthy you have to eat healthy and your local farmer knows all about that.

It just plain tastes better

     A cucumber just picked is almost a completely different thing than a cucumber that was ripened in a warehouse. Sugars turn to starches, plant cells shrink and food loses its flavor and color. When you buy local, you get a superior product that tastes better than anything that has been shipped to your area. Fresh produce explodes with flavor.

Local food is a breath of fresh air

     A farm in your communities helps to lesson pollution in the area and leads to cleaner air. Farms provide fields, ponds, forests and more for the area’s habitat to thrive. Wildlife uses farm land to reproduce. Farmers respect the land and preserve nutrient soil and fresh water.

Wide open spaces

     Having wide open spaces protects your community from becoming over developed. In turn this keeps local taxes low. After all, a field of corn can’t go to school nor does it need police protection or snow removal or any other service that would raise taxes. Plus, who doesn’t love wide open space?

Preserves farming and farming families

     The American farmer is a dying breed. Many farm families simply can’t stay in business through these tough financial times. Many farmers only make 10% of every retail dollar spent. When you buy directly from the farmer and cut out the middleman, this percentage increases to 100%.

The future

     When you support your local farmer, you are ensuring the next generation will have the ability to consume fresh, healthy and flavorful food. Buying local is like an investment in your community’s future. Without your support, neighborhood farmers will cease to exist, and without farms and farmers, we wouldn’t have food.

     At Freedom Farms we strive to supply the community with the freshest produce available. We pick every single day to ensure we continue to offer healthy, fresh, high quality food at a fair price. We travel daily to various farmers’ markets in the area while continuing to offer an extensive list of products in our home market located at 795 Rt. 8, south of Butler. Go to our website at freedomfarmspa.com or Facebook us to find out more about when and where you can give us a taste.

     Heather DeCann works at Freedom Farms. Visit the Freedom Farms at the Flea Market on Sunday mornings this summer at Commercial Avenue and Freeport Road.

And 5^th graders you can sign up for the teen summer reading program, “Make Waves”. You also have to read 10 books to get a shirt and a raffle ticket for a Flip video camera. The more books you read the more raffle tickets you will receive. We have a lot of prizes to give away this summer so don’t miss out! The teen party will be on Thursday, August 19^th.

And don’t forget there are a lot of cool programs at the library this summer. We have book groups, craft programs, and more. Start your summer off with a splash at Lauri Ann West Memorial Library!