We interrupt your regularly scheduled Candlemark & Gleam notes to bring you some important news regarding Hurricane Irene.

As some of you know, Candlemark & Gleam is located in Bennington, Vermont, one of the communities that was hit hard by Irene’s recent landfall. We’re all okay here, and it looks like we will be for the foreseeable future. The edges of town were hit hard, and the infrastructure of the region is in a shambles; while there’s some north-south travel possible, east and west are touch-and-go right now – and most of our supplies come from immediately to the west, in the Capital District of New York.

Bennington is currently running out of water, but supplies are being airlifted in as we speak, and the town hopes to have an emergency backup for the broken water main leading to our reservoir and filtration plant in place by the weekend.

In the meantime, we’re okay and we’re running as normal.

Well, not exactly normal. There’s been so much devastation, and relatively little media attention for small communities like Bennington and Wilmington, which was almost completely washed away by the flooding. As big proponents of local commerce and support, Candlemark & Gleam wants to do something. So, for the next week, any purchase of a Candlemark & Gleam book or serial will generate a matching donation to the Vermont Foodbank.

That’s right. Buy a book for $10 by September 9 and we’ll donate $10 to the Foodbank. No questions asked, no donation needed on your part.

If you’d like to donate, you can: Text FOODNOW to 52000 to donate $10 to Vermont Foodbank. The Foodbank will turn each donation into $60 for families in need.

We’ll be updating you later this week with the ComiConn roundup and the results of the Reformist Recruitment Drive, but we wanted to take a moment to reassure everyone that we’re okay, and that we’re helping with the cleanup.