Dear friends and visitors of Block Island: What a year! Disease and death in numbers we could not imagine. Thousands of front liners put their lives on the line to save and succor strangers. Tens of thousands of others put their lives and all those around them in danger of the virus and death by selfishly and deliberately ignoring the science and the minimal precautions. We lived through a year in which we witnessed the savagery of murders of our fellow citizens; the reaction of the outraged and the insurrection of our very democracy. Through it all, our neighbors and communities found millions out of work, out of money, out of food and out of hope. Even the children were not spared the loss of school and their friends. What a year indeed and in fact.