The Hard Things - Share Your Story

“I think this is a beautiful idea to begin a platform not only addressing the good but the bad as well. Finding others you can genuinely connect with who share similar feelings will help to build a stronger more cohesive community. Expressing ones inner thoughts allows others to heal along side them whether that be independently or as a unit.”

We asked the TOWN community to tell us the problems that they think are the most common, but unspoken about, in our community. Thank you to those who took the time to give us feedback. The top three biggest problems we’ve heard are mental iIllness, alcoholism, opioid addiction. Racism, sexism, and loneliness were also mentioned as problems, but not nearly as often as these others.

We are starting to write a series on each called the Hard Things, focusing on mental illness, alcoholism, and opioid addiction. To make this really impactful, we’d love for WHS alumni community to share their own Hard Things stories. De-stigmatizing mental illness and substance abuse disorders can benefit our community; your story could encourage someone to finally reach out for help or give someone hope that they too can recover.

We all know someone who has struggled with at least one of these hard things. Some of us may have even experienced them ourselves. If you feel motivated to share any bit of your story, anonymously or owning it, we support you and will make sure this is the safest space to share it.

[If you are filling this out anonymously - in the fields Name, Email, just put “Anonymous” and “anonymous@anonymous.com”]

Read more about benefits of destigmatizing here: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/07-08/upfront-destigmatizing

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-compassion/201705/the-catastrophic-effects-mental-health-stigma

Townies Talk 2019 - WHS Alumni Week

On Monday April 8, 2019 TOWN and WHS will be hosting our second annual Townies Talk, an alumni storyteller panel at Watertown High School. Alumni are invited to return to the high school to share your story, answer questions, and inspire current WHS students. In addition, on Tuesday, April 9, 2019, we are inviting alumni to attend Career Day for Sophomores.

We're excited that there are two opportunities for alumni to head back to WHS to share their stories. It’ll be great to be off-line and in real-life, to share ideas, and inspire the community.

WHS Students can sign up in the library with Nicole Lewis.

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Itinerary

Monday April 8th - 8:30am- 11am

Alumni are invited to Watertown High School for breakfast, coffee, and storytelling. Story tellers will share their stories with WHS students. The first portion of the morning will be devoted to sharing stories and answering student questions. If time permits, we will then break up into smaller groups based upon career/interest to answer questions and talk personally with students.

Confirmed speakers are:  Matt O’Meara, Lauren Parenteau (Vail), Elizabeth Saraceno, Emily Cusick, Brooke Duffany, Samantha Trayer, Jamie Trayer, Nathaniel Habeggar, Colleen Murphy, Elizabeth Almerinda Mendes, John Dipaola, & Ed Norton

*Note: Townies Talk Breakfast Panel is not open to the public; this event is specifically for WHS students, staff, speakers, sponsors and volunteers only.

Tuesday April 9th - 8:30am - 11am

WHS will be hosting Career Panels for our Sophomore students. On this morning, sophomores will rotate between panels of guest speakers representing various careers to learn about the training/schooling needs, what it is like to work in that field, and have the opportunity to ask questions.

Confirmed alumni are:  Bob LaBonne Jr., Matt O’Meara, Lauren Parenteau (Vail), Emily Cusick, Jennifer Donato, Samantha Trayer, Jamie Trayer, Colleen Murphy, Elizabeth Almerinda Mendes Ed Norton & so many others!

*You do not need to prepare anything for this event - you would simply show up and speak informally with a small group of students about your career.

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Can’t make the event? Share your story!

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Like what we are doing? We need funds to keep things like this going! Donate today and help us create the best experience for Townies Talk. 

WHS CJ Saraceno Scholarship FundRager

Please join TOWN Mag, the class of 2007 and the Saraceno family in supporting the CJ Saraceno Scholarship fund by celebrating his 30th birthday at La Bella Vista in Waterbury on Friday, February 1, 2019. Tickets are $50.

On September 29, 2013 our fellow alumnus tragically lost his life in an unexpected motor vehicle accident in Los Angeles, CA. Upon hearing of his passing and in order to honor his memory, his classmates created the CJ Saraceno Scholarship Fund. The Watertown High School class of 2007 donated their entire treasury to the fund. To date, 7 scholarships have been award to Watertown High School students in CJ’s name. In order to keep it going, we’re inviting you to join us at the fundraiser to raise money. It will include hors d’oeurves, a cash bar, live music, and raffle prizes. Can’t attend? Make a donation! Venmo a donation to @cjwhsscholarship with the name “Donation” or “Ticket” in the subject.

#chasejoy

Happy New Year, Townies

Happy New Year, Townies! We love the idea of starting fresh, of course. 2018 was a great year for TOWN and as we reflect we can’t help but be grateful for all of the support from the community. Thanks for following along with us and helping us check off our goals. Our biggest goal last year was to create the event Townies Talk, and we did it!

In 2019, we have some very specific goals that we want to put out into the universe: publish at least 12 more alumni stories, hold another Townies Talk event with the goal of reaching 4x as many students and having double the alumni speakers, and to start our series about The Hard Things so that we can be more real, raw, and honest with our content. A plus would be creating a TOWN video, but we’ll see about that.

Keep supporting us in 2019, find us on social media and spread the word to friends. If you haven’t shared your story yet, share it today and inspire someone. Help us reach our goal!

The Hard Things

TOWN focuses on positivity and good news but encourages truthful and honest stories about triumph and failure. While it’s easy for us to talk and write about the good things, we are struggling with how to approach the hard things. 

We are navigating where to draw the line in discussion, or to even start one. We are fully aware that life has hard struggles and we would love TOWN to be an open, judgement-free zone for townies to share their stories and potentially, help someone. We realize that this can go from the simple to the difficult; from answering questions about where to go to college to giving hope to someone who deals with addiction.

We’re always sad when we hear distressing news about Watertown High School alumni. We see, hear, and feel when someone from the community passes away from overdose or when alumni make poor decisions that result in their name in the newspaper. We know that life isn’t just joy. Our hearts go out to those who have left us too young and to the families who move forward. We acknowledge these things and we are still figuring out how to approach them.

We know that TOWN could possibly be a platform that can go further to create a space that is open about the issues that plague our small town. Could it be a vital connection and space to share stories that go beyond? From mental illness to addiction to loneliness to dealing with death to racism to growing old; we’ve seen it all, heard it all, know it’s there, but are we doing enough?

We want to hear from you. Take our survey below. It’s anonymous. Let us know your thoughts on how the community deals with the good, the bad and the ugly, if it’s working, and if you think TOWN could be a place for open dialogue. Also, if you’re comfortable enough sharing your own story or struggle, we think you should. You may just help someone who didn’t even know they needed it.

Going and Homecoming

Going and Homecoming | Written by Demo Gakidis

I wanted to get out of Watertown. I never felt as though it were for me. Too small. Too boring. I believed I was destined for more. My parents moved into town only a few years before I was born – I never felt the generational pull to the town others had. Went to school in Watertown, was an okay student. Probably could have tried harder, though. Maybe I would have left earlier. My friends were good. We’d drive around town. Invent games just to keep ourselves entertained. Pulled together by a need to get out.

I eventually left. And I came back. And I left again. And, still, I come back sometimes. I know the old adage is that you don’t appreciate something until it’s gone. Well, Watertown is never truly gone. In fact, it’s very much the same. Shocking, even, in its sameness. Every time I expect this miraculous change to exist and it doesn’t happen. I change. I’ve gone off to college, secured a full time job, left the country for a bit. In all those times, I’ve come back thinking, oh yes can’t wait to see how different everything is. But it’s always the same. I’m different. Sure, maybe shops have closed down or new ones opened up. Or more houses are being built in what was once just land you hardly noticed existed. But, at the heart of it, Watertown is still exactly the same. Sleepy. Quaint. Familiar.

So, if you want to leave Watertown, go out. Leave. Discover the world outside of Watertown. It’s massive. It’s unpredictable. It’s scary. But, it’s yours to see. When you lived the life you dreamed for yourself on the shores of Lake Winnemaug years and years ago, come back to Watertown. Connect with friends. Drive down the little roads you used to every day. Get a bagel from your favorite breakfast place. Marvel about how much time has passed. Watertown will be there, waiting for you.

Demosthenes (Demo) Gakidis is lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and works as a Research Coordinator at PSTAR (Program on Sexuality, Technology, Action Research) at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Connecticut in 2013 and a master's degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018. 

Congratulations WHS Class of 2018!

Congratulations to the class of 2018, we know you'll do great things. If you have any questions about the real world, let us know, we'll be happy to answer them.

Town Times Highlight

"The materials that we produce and the stories that we share, can be easily applied to guidance councilors helping students figure out college decisions or teachers helping a student cope through a tough time. Many alumni are open to connecting with students and answering questions about career choices and student loans."

Teachers, councilors, administration, reach out to us! We're here to help.

Read more here:

https://www.primepublishers.com/towntimesnews/news/community_news/town-magazine-shows-whs-students-life-after-school/article_c4983896-48b5-11e8-816e-ef95c22b8892.html

Sponsor Highlight: CrossFit Reload

We're so excited that CrossFit Reload has sponsored us for the second year in a row. CrossFit Reload has been in the Watertown since 2007 and is the Watertown community's first CrossFit gym. The best news: they are growing! They'll be moving to a much larger box this May, and to be true to their Watertown roots, of course they are staying in town! 

Townies Talk 2018

Our first inaugural Townies Talk 2018 event was superb and we couldn’t be more excited. Around 40 Watertown High School students filed into the assembly room while alumni caught up about their lives. Alumni told their stories about vastly different paths in life and gave great advice while students listened (we didn't see one single cell phone pulled out). It was so awesome to be offline and in reality. We really appreciate the teachers who encouraged students to attend the event and we think the 90 minutes was valuable time that not only helped students understand specific careers paths, but also life in general. 

Some great advice given:

“I realized how easy it was to apply myself.” 

“Contact your college for expectations ahead of time.”

“I regret not working harder in high school. You may think it’s funny to forget your homework and say a stupid excuse to make the class laugh, but it’s just not.”

“Even if you love something, you still need to fight for it.”

“Take your time, there is no rush to figure out what you want to do.”

I was surprised to hear that many Watertown High School students didn’t know that TOWN existed and it really got me thinking about our strategy. We strive to be a vital resource for teachers, guidance councilors, and the administration. The materials that we produce and the stories that we share, can be easily applied to guidance councilors helping students figure out college decisions or teachers helping a student cope through a tough time. Many alumni are open to connecting with students and answering questions about career choices and student loans. Teachers, please feel free to reach out to TOWN and use us as a resource. Join our e-mail list so that you will receive updates when new TOWN stories are published, ask us questions, print these stories out, let your students know about this important resource. In the mean time, we’ll be working on a strategy too. One thing I’m hoping is to be able to reach the entire school with our stories, now it’s just time to figure out how to do it.

In the evening, we all got together at Fino Wood Fired Pizzeria on Main Street to enjoy some delicious pizza  for our Townies Talk After Hours networking event. Soon, these online story-tellers turned into my friends; we all live very different lives but we all share one important hometown. The conversations were inspirational, intelligent and hilarious. We laughed and plotted our next TOWN move. I couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out. 

Thank you to Chelsea Kyle, Nate Habegger, Matt O’Meara, Emily O’Conner, Matt Dwyer and Lauren Vail for traveling to Watertown and taking time out of your busy lives to participate. Thank you to Nicole Lewis and Michelle Baim for helping organize the event. Thank you to the multiple teachers who saw the value and brought their classes to the event. I’m excited for the future of TOWN, and I truly hope that we can figure out a way to reach every student. 

Townies Talk - Opening

"Hi everyone! I’m Colleen Murphy and I’m the founder of TOWN Mag. We’re really excited to be here and meet you guys in real life. So, who here has heard of TOWN? Okay cool so around 3 of you. For those of you who don’t know what TOWN is, TOWN is a platform for WHS alumni to share their stories with the community, specifically you guys. I don’t get paid to run TOWN and literally no one asked me to do it. It really was just my own crazy idea. I started TOWN to make a positive impact on a community that I truly loved. There are three main reasons why, to reconnect and re-energize our community, create truthful education for WHS students about life after HS, and to include everyone in the conversation. 

Reason 1: Reconnect and Re-Energize

I really wanted reconnect and reenergize our small town community. I was determined to help future generations (you!) reach new heights and discover a multitude of divergent paths in life beyond the doors of Watertown High School. I never could have even imagined when I was in high school We were navigating the rough roads of reality but at the same time doing amazing things, things that. I kept thinking, what if our community knew the potential they had? What if we could see the steps taken to success, instead of just seeing the success and finding it to hard to accomplish, something we could never attain? What if we can add just a little bit of inspiration, from people grew up in our community and came from this town. I wanted to inspire townies and show what you can really do, even being from our small little town.

Reason 2: Truthful Education

Secondly, I wanted to tell truthful stories. There is no success without some sort of failure. I wanted you to know what really happens after high school so that you can make educated decisions about student loans, moving away from home, staying home, choosing a college, studying abroad, buying a car, ultimately finding yourself. By sharing the truth in our stories, we are sharing the most important and vulnerable part of ourselves, and that is what will really inspire.

Reason 3: Inspire Everyone

Third, I wanted to inspire everyone. My mission was to tell real and raw stories of success and failure and bridge the gap between students and alumni and that didn’t just mean college-bound students. I wanted to redefine success; that success could mean many different things to many different people and you don’t have to follow the rules. Maybe success is becoming a sergeant in the army, having a baby, overcoming depression, graduating from college, starting a business, even just finally figuring out exactly what you wanted to do in life. We should value every individual who contributes to society. I wanted every student at WHS to know your are worth something and that your story will matter too.

And so, TOWN Magazine was born.

And here we are. And today we have 6 speakers all Watertown Alumni, whose stories are extremely diverse. We’ll each have 5 minutes to share our stories and then we will answer your questions and break up into smaller groups to meet personally."

How to Share Your Story

Don't know how to share your story? We got you covered.

Sponsor Highlight: The Quiet Zone

Thank you to The Quiet Zone for renewing your sponsorship for 2018. The Quiet Zone has locations in Watertown, Bantam, Thomaston, Orange and they are opening a new location in Torrington. The best part? The business is run by WHS alumni. In 1990, the first Quiet Zone location opened its doors in Thomaston and it's been growing ever since.

They are currently looking to hire a technician full-time in their Thomaston location. Are there any WHS alumni technician's out there? Apply today and also, share your story with us to inspire some WHS townies.

Watertown District Art Show

We asked WHS alumni to submit artwork, and they seriously delivered. We had over 20 pieces submitted and displayed and we couldn't have done it without the artists themselves. Thank you Lindsey Parenteau, Janet Galasso, Robby Piazzaroli, Amanda Deschenes, Taylor Kelly, Karina Sorensen, Chelsea Kyle, Sarina Maynard, Bri Pitino, Liz Langlais, Colleen Murphy and Justin Coulter for submitting your work.

Check out their work and district artwork in the gallery above and then if you are an artist, share your story with us!

Sponsor Highlight - Labonne's Market

We are super excited to announce our newest sponsor LaBonne's Markets. LaBonne's Markets is a vital part of the Watertown community, from hiring WHS students and graduates to providing important weekly groceries to the neighborhood. 

From horse and buggy, to main street butcher shop, to three stores and over 300 associates, Labonne's has an important history in our town. We couldn't be more excited that they are support us and our efforts.

"We have had over 50 marriages from people who met while working at our store, including me and my wife Shelley who a was a cashier at our original store. I tease my dad, that was his best hire ever!" - Robert LaBonne Jr.

This was an 80's (you can tell by the big hair) Christmas party with a lot of WTN students. This was most of the front end cashiers.

Have you worked at LaBonne's and graduated from Watertown High School? Share your story today, we'd love to hear from you!

Calling All Artists!

Calling all artists! Watertown High School and TOWN are looking for art submissions from WHS alumni to showcase in the WHS Art Show Wednesday, April 4, 2018. We want your art! Not only will it be viewed by the community at Watertown High School, it will be on display during our Townies Talk event and on our website. 

Please sign up to submit artwork by submitting your name and e-mail address below and we will follow up with details on how to submit your art. If you are not located in Watertown, you can send us the files/photographs of your art and we will send it to be printed at the high school. We're looking for all forms of art submissions from photography, paintings, mixed media, sculpture, to video submissions. We're excited to see what you've created since your days in high school!

Deadline to submit: Friday, March 23, 2018

While you are at it, share your story too!

Townies Talk 2018

On Friday April 13, 2018 TOWN and WHS will be hosting Townies Talk. We’re excited to announce that we are partnering with WHS to host a Townies Talk Panel at Watertown High School and an Alumni Networking Dinner at Fino Wood Fired Pizza. Alumni Story Tellers are invited to return to the high school to share their stories, answer questions, and inspire current WHS students. We’re excited to be off-line and in real-life, to share ideas, and inspire the community!

Itinerary

8:30am - 11:00am - Townies Talk Breakfast Panel

Alumni are invited to Watertown High School for breakfast, coffee, and storytelling. Story tellers will share their stories with WHS students. The first portion of the morning will be devoted to sharing stories and answering student questions. We will then break up into smaller groups based upon career/interest to answer questions and talk personally with students. Confirmed speakers are: Chelsea Kyle, Nathaniel Habegger Matthew O'Meara, Emily O'Connor, Matthew Dwyer and Lauren Vail.  *Note: Townies Talk Breakfast Panel is not open to the public; this event is specificly for WHS students, staff, speakers, and volunteers only.

Free Afternoon

Story tellers and volunteers will have the rest of the afternoon free. We recommend setting up shop at the local Starbucks or heading out to Hawk Ridge Winery for the views and a taste-testing. Of course, we also recommend getting together with old friends or visiting family first!

5:00pm - 8:00pm - Townies Talk After Hours

Story tellers, volunteers, sponsors, students and WHS alumni, join us for pizza and networking at Fino Wood Fired Pizza on Friday, April 13 2018. We are so grateful for our storytellers who have taken the time to share with the community, we wanted to say thank you and what better way than with pizza! 

All Watertown High School alumni are encouraged to stop by for a slice on us. We also encourage current WHS students to attend. 

You can find the Facebook event to RSVP here: Townies Talk After Hours *Note: Townies Talk After hours is open to the public.

Note: Participating in Townies Talk and sharing your story is considered community service; if you need a confirmation letter that you are donating your time for the good of the community to send to your boss or company to get time off please let us know.

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Are you interested in sharing your story? Share it today and attend Townies Talk in April. 

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Like what we are doing? We need funds to keep things like this going! Donate today and help us create the best experience for Townies Talk. 

Happy New Year Townies!

Happy New Year Townies! 2017 was a brilliant year for TOWN. We are excited for what 2018 has in store for us. We've got a few things in the works (think TED Talks but Watertown-style) and we are very excited to get working on it. Thanks for following along with us. Keep supporting us in 2018, find us on social media and spread the word to friends. 

Calling all Artists and Writers!

We are looking for WHS alumni writers and artists to contribute to TOWN Mag. We have some goals to exemplify the character of Watertown, help to preserve it's history, and throw a bit of new knowledge out there to WHS students.

Get in touch with us to be a featured photographer, videographer or writer in 2018.

I'm Interested

Contributors