Everything at the SOMA Affordable Art Sale is under $200 By Cindy Perman The SOMA Affordable Art Sale organizers: Natalie Crandall, Magie Serpica, Sumana Ghosh-Witherspoon and Ken Stanek. Photo by Megan Fulop. SOMA Affordable Art Sale is the brainchild of three local artists who met while selling their art at events. They got to know each other by comparing notes on the good and bad of each event. After one whose sales were particularly disappointing, they had an idea: Why no

Getting to know our local crossing guards By Danielle Alfonzo Walsman Maplewood and South Orange have nearly 60 crossing guards to help ensure the safety of our children as they walk to and from school. The guards are also responsible for monitoring traffic patterns, reporting hazardous conditions and are often the friendly greeting and smiling face that our children rely on each day, no matter the weather conditions. In the first of a continuing series, Matters Magazine intr

Columbia High School students turn 3D printers into tools for good By Adrianna Donat Jackson Teitelbaum, a senior at Columbia High School, is the founder of Print with Purpose. The group designs and 3D prints tactile educational tools for people who are blind. Accompanied by the steady hum of 3D printers, a handful of Columbia High School students are running a quiet operation with big impact from their homes. Their efforts are changing lives for visually impaired people they

High school senior earns award for volunteering By Ellen Donker Gardiner's service trip to Los Angeles propelled him to volunteer even more. Findley Gardiner has volunteered at food pantries and soup kitchens since he was 11. So when he went on a service trip to Los Angeles in June 2024 with other boys at his high school, St. Peter’s Prep, he thought he knew the drill. He didn’t expect the experience to change how he viewed his ability to help others. “I was just excited that

Found: family recordings on antique discs By Ellen Donker A few weeks ago, my mother got an unexpected package in the mail. My cousin Lorraine was cleaning out her mother’s apartment and thought my mother might want some photos and homemade record discs from her youth. The photos were mostly duplicates of ones my mother already had, but the records were another story. They are home recordings that her Uncle Herb had made in the 1940s. She had mentioned the recordings to me ov

Discussing his latest book, Unabridged: The Thrill of and Threat to the Modern Dictionary , Stefan Fatsis notes, “I still have the Webster’s New World dictionary my mom gifted me on my 11th birthday.” As the holiday season approaches and we shop for gifts, I wonder when and why we started “gifting” and stopped merely “giving” presents to others. I first noticed people regularly using “to gift” as a verb 15 or so years ago. It’s a good example of what linguists call “conversio