Kalamazoo Students Headed to Africa to Help Install Water Purification Systems

Don't know about you, but personally I feel that there are not enough positive stories about urban education and the youth therein. Here's an exception:

A group of Kalamazoo students will leave on an overseas trip today, but they won’t be spending time on the beach or at tourist attractions.

Eight students from Kalamazoo and six adults will spend 15 days learning about culture in Senegal and doing community service as part of the Urban Youth for Africa. The program, sponsored by the Kalamazoo Deacon’s Con­ference, is in its third year and its first as a partner of Clean Water for the World.

“There are ways to learn out­side school,” Cranston Mitch­ell, 18, said. “You can learn anywhere.”

The students, who will be staying near the capitol city of Dakar, will be matched up with local students to do workshops, find common ground and en­gage in “mutual culture ex­changes” in collaboration with the Africulturban Community Center, a radio station, youth center and performance space in Pikine.

And they will install a water purification system at the community center as well as one at a school in Pikine.

www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/06/8_kalamazoo_students_headed_to.html

The Sandbox Party Salutes Governor Snyder's New Office of Great Start

Before the real work begins in hammering out the details, early childhood supporters from the tip of Copper Country in the Upper Peninsula to Wayne County in Southeast Michigan paused to commend Governor Rick Snyder’s action (on Wednesday) creating a Michigan Office of Great Start by Executive Order.

The action:

• Places the new Office within the Michigan Department of Education;
• Provides the Superintendent of Public Instruction “all administrative powers, duties, functions and responsibilities” over the new Office;
• Transfers to the new Office all responsibilities of the Office of Child Development and Care within the Department of Human Services;
• Transfers to the new Office all responsibilities of the Head Start Collaboration Office within the Department of Human Services;
• and transfers to the new Office all responsibilities of the Office of Early Childhood Education and Family Services within the Michigan Department of Education

www.michigansandboxparty.org/media/in-the-news/react-office-great-start

Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan Celebrates 30th Anniversary

No one likes to think of death, of what their life — or the life of a loved one — will be like when the end is near.

Easing that end-of-life concern led to the creation of the first modern hospice in the U.S. in 1974, with the idea spreading to southwest Michigan in just a few years.

The concept behind hospice care — that people in the end stages of life deserve to live comfortably and in dignity — took root in Kalamazoo in 1981 with the launch of Hospice of Greater Kalamazoo. Now called Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan, the nonprofit organization is celebrating 30 years of serving the community, of helping the dying live out the remainder of their lives peacefully and guiding family members as they cope with the loss of a loved one.

The organization has come a long way in just 30 years.

Initially funded as a pilot program with a $100,000 grant from the Kalamazoo Foundation (now Kalamazoo Community Foundation) with other assorted grants and donations, its first headquarters was donated office space inside St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. From helping 72 families in its first year, Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan has worked with “thousands and thousands” of clients and families over the agency’s history, according to Kelly McCormick, chief operating officer for Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan.

www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/06/ce_care_of_southwest_michigan.html

Habitat for Humanity Opens Re-Store In Allegan

Lakeshore Habitat For Humanity cut the ribbon Monday, June 20, on its new Re-Store in Allegan, at 1513 Lincoln Road.

Providing building materials, appliances and home furnishings for as little as 50 percent of retail cost, the Re-Store's profits help fund the nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry's mission: partnering with families in need to build homes.

Lakeshore Habitat Re-Store director Chris Tucker said the business had been in the planning for a year and renovations to the 6,800-square-foot building took seven weeks. It will be open Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (closed Sunday).

Store manager Chad Bryson said he was getting a lot of positive feedback from the community.

"I think the store fills a niche," Bryson said, "especially now, with the job losses and gas prices. We're the perfect place to shop."

Habitat Re-Stores are stocked with items other stores and contractors donate (or discontinue); they are not defective.

www.allegannews.com/articles/2011/06/23/local_news/4.txt

NPR Report: Food Bank Shortages Lead To Innovation

Food banks around the country are trying to keep their shelves stocked as more people in the U.S. struggle to get enough to eat. Increasingly, that means finding new ways to salvage food that would otherwise go to waste.

One innovation is being tested at the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee. In a back room at the food bank's warehouse in Gray, Tenn., dented and crushed cans containing everything from green beans to beets are piled high on a counter.

In the past, these cans all would have been thrown out, because no one knew whether bacteria had slipped through a crack, spoiling the contents.

But Scott Kinney, who's in charge of finding food supplies for the food bank, says that might be about to change.

He puts several damaged cans into a box-shaped machine with a clear lid. It's a vacuum packaging machine — the kind usually used to seal food in plastic.

"Right now it's setting up the vacuum," he says, as the machine motor starts to hum. "You can watch; the cans will move a little bit as the vacuum gets to its highest pressure point."

The cans vibrate, then puff up like little balloons as the machine sucks out all the air in the chamber. They return to normal when the machine stops.

www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137375088/food-bank-shortages-lead-to-innovation

Feeding America West Michigan Looking for Matching Donations to Expand Benton Harbor Distribution Facility

From the Feeding America West Michigan web site:

We’ve just been promised the support of the Frederick S. Upton Foundation for our efforts to expand the capacity of our new Benton Harbor warehouse – but only if you step up, too!

To provide families in need in Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren Counties with the 10 million pounds of supplemental food they need each year, we’ve got to equip the building with a REALLY BIG cooler/freezer and lots of shelving (racking, really) designed to hold full pallets of food.

Help us meet the Foundation’s challenge to raise $20,000 and they’ll send us a matching $20,000 – enabling us to increase the flow of food to the southwest Michigan families who need it most.

For more information including how to donate, see the Feeding America West Michigan web site at:

www.feedingamericawestmichigan.org/blog/2011/06/17/upton-match-donation-challenge/

WMU partners to open new center to help autistic children in Portage

The vacant Moose Lodge on Portage Road could become the home of a new center that will help autistic children and their families from Southwest Michigan as well as the entire state.

The Great Lakes Center for Autism Treatment and Research, which would provide both outpatient and inpatient care, could open as early as March 2012, said Scott Schrum, chief executive officer of Residential Opportunities Inc. ROI is a Kalamazoo nonprofit organization that serves people with disabilities.

Schrum said ROI hopes to finalize the $675,000 sale of the building at 9616 Portage Road late next month or early August and begin a $1.7 million renovation project in September, in time to open its doors by early next year.

So far, ROI has raised $636,000 of the $2.5 million needed to buy and refurbish the old 18,500-square-foot lodge.

Schrum said the new center could help 20 children a year who would otherwise be stuck on a waiting list trying to get into intensive inpatient treatment at the other three autistic centers in Michigan. The outpatient program would serve up to 100 children annually in the greater Kalamazoo County area.

"The impact for these children will be huge," Schrum said of the center, which would be a partnership between ROI and the Western Michigan University Department of Psychology.

A professor, two graduate assistants and interns from the psychology department would join 35 other employees to run the center, which would be staffed 24/7.

Autism is a disorder that affects one out of every 110 children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/06/center_to_help_autistic_childr.html

Linking Education, Activity, and Nutrition (L.E.A.N.) Growing A Garden for Area Food Banks & Providing Education Training

Marking its second year, The Project Linking Education, Activity, and Nutrition (L.E.A.N.) Community Garden officially took roots this week in Paw Paw with a county-wide partnership that includes the Community Based Transition Center for Disabled Students ages 18-26, the Community Mental Heath Adult clients, the Van Buren Intermediate School District Learning Center for special needs students, as well as the VBISD Summer Migrant Education Program, and various other community organizations

The Community Garden Project will provide produce for local food banks. In addition, it will provide gardening and nutrition education programs, canning and food preservation classes, food for the disadvantaged youth and their families, as well as produce to be sold at local farmers markets for entrepreneurship training for youth and disabled populations.

www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20463113&BRD=2188&PAG=461&dept_id=560363&rfi=6

Kalamazoo County Considers November Ballot Requesting Funds for Housing for Homeless

The Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners will talk today (Tuesday) about putting a tax question on the November ballot to fund more housing for the homeless.

The discussion will take place during today's 4 p.m. Committee of the Whole Meeting at the Kalamazoo County Administration Building, 201 W. Kalamazoo Ave.

The Kalamazoo County Public Housing Commission Chairman David Anderson is expected to ask the county commissioners to put a 0.33 mill request on the Nov. 8 ballot.

www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/06/tax_proposal_to_fund_housing_f.html

Food Bank of South Central Michigan Sponsors Friday Battle Creek Food Giveaway Throughout the Summer

Adora Johnson watched contentedly Friday morning as dozens of people, including some of her neighbors on Battle Creek's north side, walked up the driveway of the Washington Heights Community House.

A longtime resident of the Washington Heights neighborhood, Johnson helped the travelers, many of whom arrived on foot, sign up for free groceries. She later pointed them toward several long tables where polite young men bagged milk, eggs, potatoes, cereal and other produce for each customer.

"If you can help fix a meal for one child, you're doing a lot. There's a need for help in a lot of ways," Johnson said in the shade of the community house, one of seven food distribution sites in Battle Creek that began summer operations Friday.

The weekly giveaway of fresh produce from mid-June to late September is part of an annual feeding operation by the Food Bank of South Central Michigan, which provides truck loads of food to the sites, which in turn give it away every Friday on a first-come, first-served basis.The dispensation was especially sweet Friday in central Washington Heights, a community with hunger needs that hasn't had a weekly pick-up site since the last one ended several years ago at the Washington Heights United Methodist Church on Wood Street. Users of the summer food program in that area have had to drive or get rides to one of the other sites; the closest is Second Missionary Baptist on Washington Avenue.

www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20110618/NEWS01/106180302/Free-food-offered-every-Friday