Ann Silverthorn

Have you ever received a Facebook friend request from someone you thought you were already friends with? Did you accept the request and then discover that you were now friends with the same person twice? It happened to me a few months ago. I went ahead and accepted the friend request and then messaged the person…

I’ve been called many things in my life, opinionated, obstinate, spoiled, stuck-up, and a few others, but I’ve never been called dishonest, that I know of. Well, actually, there was one time I was accused of being dishonest. That was when a high-school English teacher, Mrs. Pek, gave me a failing grade for my short…

Ever go at your yard with gusto and create an overwhelming mound of twigs and leaves? If you want to get rid of that debris with your weekly trash pick-up in Millcreek Township (Pennsylvania), you have to bundle the sticks neatly in four-foot long parcels, and you must place all of your leaves in large,…

A couple of days ago, I shared my experience at the composting workshop with you. The workshop didn’t just cover composting, though. We also learned about a program called RecyclErie that every area business should look into. It’s free, and it can help reduce trash-hauling expenses for businesses, including restaurants. Did you know that 80% of the trash generated…

Composting is actually not cool. It is warm when done right, but you get what I mean. Did you know that two-thirds of everything we throw away is compostable? That’s what Don Blakesley, Erie County Recycling Coordinator, says. In Erie County (Pennsylvania) today, on average, each person generates 3,400 lbs. of trash per year. Want…

Note 2026: What follows is a draft of the prologue that appears in the book, William E. Dimorier: Servant Leader, self-published by Ann Silverthorn in 2022. Prologue Brilliant reflections of the early sun pierced the century-old glass of my office window, in a room once slept in by house servants. On the third floor of…

It’s official. The Spring 2014 Erie Ambassador class has graduated. Ask us what Erie has to offer. We can share plenty after nine sessions, during which we learned about nearly twenty different organizations that make Erie a better place. Our graduation ceremony and celebration was hosted by the Regional Cancer Center (RCC), which was founded in 1987 as a…

As cold as it was in January for our first session in the Erie Ambassador program’s Spring 2014 course, the temperature climbed to the opposite end of the thermometer for the last. Erie reached a high of 88 degrees yesterday as we gathered at Boston’s restaurant to hear about tourism in Erie County. We learned that our hometown is gaining recognition…

Moms’ Night Out features a terrific car chase, an out-of-control taser, and a tattoo found on a most-unlikely subject. It also offers tons of excitement and hilarity, without reducing itself to the gratuitous violence and awkward sex scenes that seem to be standard today. If you want to see a movie that will make you laugh,…

On a brisk but sunny evening, we boarded the Erie-Western Pennsylvania Port Authority’s water taxi at the Wolverine Park marina for session eight of the Erie Ambassador program. The water taxi operates daily from late May to early October ($9 round trip/$7 one-way/$7 children) and crosses the bay to Presque Isle Water Works from both Dobbins Landing and Liberty…