Category: Opinions

You can help: Do good and feel good

by Cathi Hahner

The United Way office has recently had requests from people needing help with yard work because they are unable to do it themselves and simply cannot afford to pay the commercial rates. Nonprofits are also looking for that additional assistance to keep up with the facilities during the summer months. If you have a few extra hours to help, it would mean so much to these folks. You might consider doing it as a family group or a small group from church or work? Doing physical labor outside is a good way to not only do good for others but to do something very good for you.

You might start by looking around your neighborhood. Is there a neighbor too busy making ends meet, caring for a loved one or just physically unable to tackle the lawn and gardens? Maybe you and your family can help get the property in shape. You feel good because you helped someone; and you feel good because you got your hands dirty, a dose of vitamin D, burned up some calories and you improved the neighborhood. Not a bad exchange for a couple hours of work outdoors. You can also check with your neighborhood association. They might have some neighborhood work days planned. Neighbors working together to help each other and to help maintain common or public areas in the vicinity is a great way to build community.

The struggling nonprofits in our community often need the help of volunteers to do outdoors maintenance or help in the community gardens. Their facilities and grounds need to be kept risk free and inviting to the staff and clients. Check with your favorite non-profit to see if they need your help. You can also call me if you don’t know of a local non-profit.

The Boy Scouts have Camp Naish near Edwardsville. A facility that is big and used by many area Scouts always needs sprucing up. For more information on how you can help with projects go to www.hoacbsa.org/camping/maintenance team. They have a list of established work days.

For information on how you can give, advocate and volunteer, contact Cathi Hahner at 913-371-3674 or at [email protected]. Visit the web site for volunteer opportunities at www.unitedway-wyco.org.

Cathi Hahner is the director of volunteer services at the United Way of Wyandotte County.

Little community garden a point of pride

A community garden at Grinter Chapel United Methodist Church produces lettuce that is often used for church dinners. (Submitted photo)

Window on the West
by Mary Rupert

Pat Spencer’s very proud of the little community garden she helped start three years ago at Grinter Chapel United Methodist Church, 7819 Swartz Road.

The garden has six raised beds and raises produce such as tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, kale, and radishes.

She pointed out the garden’s purpose is just to help, to reach out to the community and provide an activity and resource for people.

There isn’t enough produce, she said, to give away large amounts at a food pantry, especially this early in the year, but occasionally there is enough to give a little to those attending church, and to donate to a church dinner. The upcoming spaghetti dinner and silent auction from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 28, at the church will include salad ingredients raised in the church’s community garden. Admission is $8 for adults and $4 for kids under 10.

Spencer, 76, said she has help from a few 20-year-olds in the garden.

Always a gardener, Spencer has a home garden and flowers to take care of, too. She remembers growing up with a relative’s garden on 63rd Street. She moved a little further west about 45 years ago. It has been said that they received some tips from california listings lawn care companies to ensure that the garden thrives.

“We gardened when we were kids and had to,” she recalled. One relative had a garden about a block long. The youngsters were told to not eat all the strawberries in a family garden, she laughed.

Maybe several generations back, there might have been a family farm in Missouri, she said. Her dad was a mechanic who did not garden until he retired, then he had a backyard garden.

“I’ve always had a small garden,” Pat Spencer said. “I like to be outside working. I love the fresh produce.”

To reach Mary Rupert, editor, email [email protected].

Commerce Department helps add jobs

Views West
by Murrel Bland
The number of Kansans working today, about 1.4 million, is about the same number as those working before the “Great Recession” hit in 2007. That was the message that Dan Lara brought to the Congressional Forum at its monthly luncheon meeting at the Reardon Convention Center.
Lara, who handles public affairs for the Kansas Department of Commerce, was the featured speaker at the meeting. He was substituting for his boss, Pat George, who is Secretary of Commerce. George was attending to family business.
Lara is a former press secretary for Sam Brownback when he was U.S. senator. Brownback is now governor seeking his second term.
Lara told of various success stories of companies that the Department of Commerce has helped including two in Lenexa. They are Quest Diagnostics which will employ 500 persons and Grantham University that will employ 400.
The employment rate in Kansas in May was 4.8 percent compared to 6.1 percent this time last year, according to the Kansas Department of Labor. The unemployment rate in Wyandotte County for May was 7.8 percent.
The Commerce Department has launched the “KanVet” program that is an aggressive effort to employee military veterans. It asks private and public sector employers to take a pledge to help hire veterans; those who have taken the pledge include Country Club Bank, Kansas City Power and Light and Rental City. After businesses take the pledge, staff members from the Commerce Department work with businesses to link qualified veterans with job openings.
Lara also told of the Rural Opportunity Zone program offered in 73 Kansas counties. Such counties are authorized to provide a state income tax waiver for up to five years or to pay student loans up to $15,000 or both. To be eligible for the program, a person must establish residency in one of the 73 counties after July 1, 2011, live outside Kansas for five years previous and have earned less than $10,000 in each of the five years before coming to Kansas.
Lara said the program was successful in attracting engineering graduates, among other professionals.
Bob Kimball, a member of the Congressional Forum whose family was a longtime business owner in the Fairfax industrial area, questioned whether the program was fair to engineering students who were Kansas residents and graduates of the University of Kansas or Kansas State University; they would not be eligible.
I asked Lara if there was any possibility for an urban opportunity zone in Wyandotte County. I explained that Wyandotte County faces the same problem as many rural counties with the loss of population. Lara said such an urban program might be considered.
Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is the executive director of Business West.