The six-foot inflated silver sphere that was spotted bobbing offshore at Main Beach on Saturday afternoon was neither a weather balloon nor, apparently, a spy balloon, but arriving as it did during President Biden’s heavily policed fund-raising swing through East Hampton that day, people can be forgiven for some wild speculation.
“Today you stand on the brink of new beginnings,” the fashion designer Donna Karan said in her keynote address to the Pierson High School graduates. “You have faced challenges, setbacks, and moments of doubt. But these experiences shape you, they teach us to evolve.”
From thriving in the face of a global pandemic, to building a welcoming and inclusive classroom environment, to bringing their principal enough nonperishable food items to stock the entire school district’s Little Free Food Pantries at least all summer long, East Hampton High School’s class of 2024 “understood the assignment.”
When the news broke of “the geopolitical event of the century,” an East Hampton doctor, George Dempsey, and his wife, Lauren Dempsey, felt compelled to help. A few weeks ago, the Dempseys returned from their second humanitarian trip to Ukraine. This time, the mission was to deliver 50 ambulances to the Ukrainian frontlines, where the ambulances are now being used in the war effort.
