12/21/20
Dear YCCAC/Nasson Team:
Today marks the winter solstice and tonight is the longest night of the year. The solstice is an event that has been marked throughout all of human history. Archeologists and historians have found ‘passage tombs’ in Europe that are ancient—more than 5,000 years old, built well before the Great Pyramids in Egypt. Every year, at the precise moment of sunrise after this longest night, a beam of light shines through a precisely placed window, and illuminates the tombs’ chamber. Ancients would gather during the cold night in the chamber, and await the return of the sun. This was the signal they needed to assure them that, although the nights were cold, long and dark, there was reason to hope.
This has been a year unlike any we have experienced. To say that we could use hope that brighter days are ahead is to truly understate the case.
Your work over that past year, through the most challenging of circumstances, has enabled YCCAC/Nasson to remain a resource and a refuge for York County residents. Most of you have juggled family demands with difficult work schedules. You have stepped up, as I knew you would, and have made a difference to literally thousands of our neighbors. You have transported them to work, taught and cared for their children, treated their illnesses, fed them, kept them housed and warm, and often listened to them vent their fears. Through your work, whether you have interacted with client or kept the organization running, you have shared the burden of this pandemic, and by doing that, you have lightened the load for many.
So, today, let’s mark the solstice, and like our forebearers, recognize that lighter days will return. Hopeful glimmers, like the arrival of the vaccine or that Congress has at last passed another relief bill, can keep us going!
Please enjoy the Holiday weekend and let’s all look forward to the close of 2020 and hope for a happy and healthy New Year.
Sincerely,
Barb