The Register Citizen is co-sponsoring the annual Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerce Job Fair from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 25.
Workshops for job seekers will be offered on interviewing and resume writing and college financial aid. And the Northwest Regional Workforce Investment Board will make a presentation to employers.
If you'd like to reserve a table, call the Chamber at 482-6586 or email info@nwctchamberofcommerce.org.

The Register Citizen's office at 190 Water St. in Torrington is a dropoff point for the United Way of Northwest Connecticut's annual Food For Your Neighbors program.

Please consider donating a few canned items or other food that will be distributed to local food pantries and soup kitchens. Such organizations have seen an increase in demand of between 30 and 40 percent so far this year due to the tough economic times.

CLICK HERE for related editorial. CLICK HERE for more information from the United Way's Web site.

Community drop-off points include BD, Bank of America’s S. Main branch, Burns, Brooks & McNeil, Canaan Child Care Center, Education Connection, First National Bank of Litchfield branches, Geer Nursing & Rehabilitation, Kelly Services, LARC, Litchfield Bancorp’s Torrington and Litchfield branches, National Iron Bank, Northwest Center, the Northwest Chamber of Commerce, Northwest Community Bank’s Winsted branch, Northwest Hills Credit Union, Republican-American, the Register Citizen, Salisbury Bank & Trust company branches, Torrington Area Health District, Torrington Savings Bank branches, Town of Harwinton Town Hall, WQQQ, WZBG, and YMCA branches.
Food Depots will open on February 9 at three locations: in Winsted, the Salvation Army Food Bank, 110 Main St., between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday - Thursday (frozen food accepted also); in Canaan, at the YMCA at Geer, 99 S. Canaan Rd., or call 860-824-2788; and in Torrington, the Foothills Trader building, Church St., from 1 - 5:30 p.m. Monday - Thursday.
Organizations with large quantities of food can also call the United Way (489-4131) to arrange a pick up. All types of dried and canned goods, baby food, and toiletries are needed.

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MATT DERIENZO: My daughter and an inauguration

My daughter turns 2 in a few weeks.She still doesn’t say much — there’s a few key words and a lot of babbling, pointing, and tugging on your sleeve to get her point across.

So her parents’ jaws were agape over the weekend when Marley tripped and dropped something on the living room floor, and then let out a perfectly pronounced expletive. Then repeated it just to make sure, perhaps, that we hadn’t misheard.

The Register Citizen and Foothills Trader will publish a special section Jan. 27 celebrating Women in Business.
The deadline for advertising is tomorrow. Call Tilda Crossman at 489-3121, ext. 314, if you are interested in spotlighting your own work or that of a woman who is key to your business's success.

CLICK HERE for my latest column.

Toughest times put spotlight on basic needs
The United Way of Northwest Connecticut supports a wide variety of nonprofit causes vital to our region. Its annual fundraising campaign and the year-round payroll deduction contributions made by thousands of local residents support 22 agencies from the YMCA, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, to agencies providing home hospice care to people without insurance, mental health and addiction counseling, child care and domestic violence education, support and shelter.

We have a job opening at The Register Citizen and Foothills Trader that actually involves helping other businesses with their job openings, among other things.
We are looking for a full-time classified sales representative, to take inbound calls from readers and businesses looking to place help wanted ads, for sale ads, etc., and to make outbound calls soliciting such ads.
The hourly pay rate is low, but with commissions, your pay is limited only by how much effort you put into the job. Income potential is unlimited.
If you're interested, send a resume to our classified manager, Donna Musler, at dmusler@registercitizen.com.

The Register Citizen will publish a special section on the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama on Inauguration Day, Tuesday, Jan. 20.
The section will be geared especially to children, and extra copies are available for distribution in the classroom that day as part of our Newspapers in Education program.
To order copies for your school, call Bob Reneson at 489-3121, ext. 370, or email breneson@registercitizen.com.
If you are interested in advertising in the section, call Tilda Crossman at 489-3121, ext. 314, or email tcrossman@registercitizen.com.

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A 2020 vision of downtown Torrington
It is the summer of 2020, and after scanning the latest readers’ debate on President Caroline Kennedy’s bid for re-election, I look out the window of our offices at registercitizen.com. There I see a family who’d biked up the downtown, riverfront Greenway after shopping at the Barnes and Noble in the old shopping plaza across from Coe Park. They stopped next to our building for a treat at the old railroad station, restored and reopened a few years back as an ice cream and coffee shop.

Thank you so much to all who contributed to our Warm the Children campaign this year.
We have now exceeded our 20th anniversary goal of $20,000, and at $20,212, it's enough to serve 202 children, the most in recent memory. It's 33 percent more than we raised last year.
It means a lot this year because the need is so great, and even in the good economic years, Warm the Children always has a waiting list of struggling local families who need new, warm, winter clothing for their children.
From the people able to give $5, to Valerie Manor, which came through with a $250 gift at the end in lieu of holding an employee Christmas party this year, and two anonymous givers who contributed $500 and $100 to put us over the top, you have made a direct, real impact to better the lives of some of Northwest Connecticut's most innocent and vulnerable citizens.

With so many trying to make room for new Christmas and Hannukah gifts, or trying to raise a little extra cash in these tough times, we have completely overhauled our "for sale" classified ads.
Now you can reach more potential customers for what might be your junk, but someone else's treasure, for less money.
We have reduced the cost of "for sale" ads for individuals to $15, and at the same time, multiplied the reach of those ads exponentially.
Now you can place a three-line (roughly 16 words) for sale ad for one price of $15, and it will appear in three issues of The Register Citizen, on registercitizen.com, in one week of the Foothills Trader, in one week of Good News About Torrington (which goes to every home and business in Torrington) and in one week of the Thomaston Express.
That's more than 100,000 circulation for $15, and if you can't sell your old computer, exercise equipment, boat or used car with that kind of exposure, I don't know what to tell you!
Placing these ads are easy. You can call 489-5555 and do it with a credit card, or simply mail a check for $15 along with the text of your ad (remember, roughly 16 words, with the phone number counting as a word) to Classifieds, care of The Register Citizen, 190 Water St., Torrington, CT 06790.

The print edition of The Register Citizen on Tuesday will include two special sections, a beautiful winter Bridal Guide with advice and fashion articles and advertising from local bridal shops, banquet halls, florists, etc., and a "2009 Careers and Education" section, something many have requested we do in these uncertain times as suddenly downsized workers look to retrain for a new career.

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New Year’s resolutions for our newspaper

As many focus on quitting smoking or going to the gym regularly in the new year, we are working on our own resolutions for 2009 at The Register Citizen.

OK, so it is a bit of a stretch, but President-elect Obama's choice for U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, of CNN fame, has a connection to Torrington and this newspaper.

Warm the Children, the program that provides new, warm winter clothing each year to local children in need, was founded at The Register Citizen 20 years ago by former Publisher Mack Stewart.
After its succesful launch in Torrington, Stewart took the program with him when he was named publisher of the Middletown Press, and in retirement, Stewart spread the idea to newspapers across the country.

Gupta, 39, was a volunteer shopper for the Warm the Children program in Ann Arbor, Mich., when he was a student there.

The Register Citizen's Warm the Children campaign should hit its 20th anniversary goal of $20,000 within the next 24 hours or so.

After an anonymous reader stepped forward with a $100 challenge to others seeking to close the $700 gap left to reach the goal, The Register Citizen received a $500 donation this morning from a reader who read about the challenge.

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As we close in on Issue No. 116, Vol. No. 366 (it was a Leap Year, remember), we can look back on 2008 as a year of significant changes for The Register Citizen, both in what the reader sees every day and behind the scenes.