Editor, Gazette-Journal:

Long-range planning is something that we all do. We save for a car or for retirement. We plan a wedding or some other event. What is true in our own lives is even more necessary for our community. Planning helps us to have a better future.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of Gloucester could pull together and help Gloucester to become a more wonderful place to bring up kids and to have a family life?

We really could use community services for our whole life, from the cradle to the grave. Kids, as well as adults, need to be full partners in our community. Think about it:

1. A new library in Hayes.

2. A new YMCA in Hayes.

3. A place for the Court House Players to perform.

4. Gloucester-Mathews Free Clinic.

If these community services could be located together near the Boys and Girls Club, we would have an area where people could go for entertainment, health and fitness, and enrichment of their minds. Having sites near each other would help them to thrive as they could share one property as well as some of the same patrons. Together they could contribute to a stronger sense of community in Gloucester. It should not be necessary to cross the river to find community services or cultural events.

Recently, on a plane on our trip to see our son Dirk and his family and to tour Switzerland, there was a YMCA gymnastics group from the U.S. on board. They were on their way to a world meeting. On our trip back, the same group was with us again. We talked with them and learned that without the YMCA, they could not have gone on such a trip. They had a lovely time. They had exchanged clothes with kids from all over the world. Their minds had been broadened to see how other young people live.

The world is so full of pressures that we need to provide every opportunity to keep our kids off of the streets, off of drugs, in school and growing to be productive citizens. Community-based programs foster such ideas.

I sure would love to see Gloucester continue to grow to be a wonderful place—a place to live and to bring kids up loving it here.

My e-mail is muscle_doctor@hotmail.com. I’d like to set up a group to get this on the road and finish it.

Gerlinde M. Stevens

Hayes, Va.