RECORDER
BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT B1
Your Community Recorder newspaper serving Florence E-mail: kynews@communitypress.com T h u r s d a y, O c t o b e r 2 2 , 2 0 0 9
W e b s i t e : N K Y. c o m
B E C A U S E C O M M U N I T Y M AT T E R S
League of Cities honors Florence
Chris Cook of CruCutters
Volume 15 Number 5 © 2009 The Community Recorder ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Collection time
In the next few days your Community Press carrier will be stopping by to collect $2.50 for delivery of this month’s Florence Recorder. Your carrier retains half of this amount along with any tip you give to reward good Schaefer service. This month we’re featuring Emily Schaefer who attends Ockerman Middle School and is on the A/B honor roll. She likes to dance, play basketball and softball and is a dog walker. For information about our carrier program, call Victoria Martin, 859-442-3463, or e-mail vmartin@communitypress.com.
Children’s Advocacy Center cooperative venture with Fort Thomas By Justin B. Duke jbduke@nky.com
PATRICIA A. SHEYER/CONTRIBUTER
Warming up
Esther Huffaker of Florence and Larry Elliott of Glencoe crouch around the campfire during the annual Salt Festival at Big Bone Lick State Park.
School makes reading a ball
Florence Elementary is hoping its readers aim for the fences. The school kicked off its annual Accelerated Reader program. Each year the school gives the program a theme and is using baseball this year. “We try to get the kids motivated,” said Principal Charlie Walton. – SCHOOLS, PAGE A7
Letters to Santa
Hey kids! It’s time to start writing your letters to Santa and send them in to the Community Recorder, where they will be published on Wednesday, Nov. 26. Please send your brief letter to Santa to Melissa Hayden, Santa’s Helper, 394 Wards Corner Road, Loveland, OH 45140 or via e-mail to mhayden@communitypress.com. Be sure to include your child’s name, age, the community you live in and the Community Recorder paper you read, as well as a telephone number we can use to contact you if we require additional information. You may also include a non-returnable photogaph (or JPG image) that may appear with your letter. Letters and photos are due no later than Friday, Nov. 13.
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Hospital walk hits home
By Justin B. Duke jbduke@nky.com
A Florence family is celebrating life and helping those who are preserving it. The McEachern family participated in their third year of the Cincinnati Walks for Kids. The walk was Saturday, Oct. 10, at Coney Island. The walk benefits the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, which holds a special place in each member of the family’s heart. All three children have been
treated at the hospital, including spinal cord surgery on the youngest of the three children, Gabriel, when he was a year old. The walk was a way to celebrate because with all the family has needed from the hospital, all three children walked, said mother Jennifer McEachern. The walk allowed the kids to see they aren’t alone, she said. “It allows my children to see other children who are in similar situations,” McEachern said. Participating also teaches the McEachern children an important life lesson, she said.
“It’s really important to give back,” McEachern said. Over the years, the McEacherns have built a team to walk – starting with five and growing to 25 for this year. “We have 25 of our closest friends and family there to help us support Cincinnati Children’s,”said McEachern. “We are blessed and thankful that we can continually be examples and advocates of such a wonderful hospital,” he said. For more information about Cincinnati Walks for Kids, visit cincinnatichildrens.org/walk.
Free lunches on the rise in Boone By Justin B. Duke jbduke@nky.com
The repercussions of the economy have made it to the cafeteria. Both Boone County school districts have seen a jump in applications for free and reduced lunches this school year. For Boone County Schools, about 2 percent more students are receiving aid than last year, but for a district with more than 19,000 students that means more than 5,600 students are receiving aid. “We’re at the highest we’ve ever seen,” said Food Services Manager Barbara Kincaid. In Walton-Verona Schools there was a 4.3 percent increase in general enrollment, but a 14.9 percent increase in free and reduced lunch recipients. “It does suggest that the econ-
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omy is hitting our families hard, “ said Walton-Verona Finance Officer Kevin Ryan. Because the free and reduced lunch program is reimbursed with federal money, the districts aren’t burdened by the increases, Kincaid said. “At a time when people need it most, we’re glad it’s there,” she said. A common theme from applications this year is the number of students requesting free or reduced lunch for the first time, Kincaid said. “We’ve got parents calling who say, ‘We’ve never, never asked for free or reduced lunch,’” she said. Often parents say they need the service because they’ve lost a job and will only use it until they get a new job, Kincaid said. Since an application is good for an entire school year, Kincaid
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encourages those parents to continue to use it all year and use lunch money to try to catch up on bills. Kincaid has been impressed with how selfless parents have been, often times not wanting to apply because they feel someone else may need the service more. “Even in difficult times, people have been so gracious – not wanting anyone else to miss out,” she said. A common myth is that the service only has so many spots, but it is open to anyone who needs it, Kincaid said. “We can take everybody,” she said. Even at all-time highs, Boone County’s free and reduced lunch population is low compared to other districts in the state that have free and reduced lunch rates near 90 percent, Kincaid said.
8160 Dream Street Florence, KY 41042 859-282-7040
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Florence is getting top honors in the state. The city was awarded the Enterprise Award from the Kentucky League of Cities for the construction of the Northern Kentucky Children’s Advocacy Center (NKCAC). NKCAC is a nonprofit agency that provides services to children who have been sexually or physically abused or who have witnessed violent crimes. Prior to construction of the new facility, the agency The city was was servicing 500 children awarded the a year out of Enterprise three rooms Award from the in a pediatric p h y s i c i a n ’s Kentucky office in League of Bellevue. The center Cities for the was funded construction of through a the Northern partnership between FloKentucky rence and Children’s Fort Thomas where both Advocacy cities used Center. Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) to raise $1.5 million. “(The award) meant a lot to us,” said Mayor Diane Whalen. More than recognizing the city, Whalen hopes the award spotlights the NKCAC. “It’s just an opportunity to let people know the advocacy center is there,” Whalen said. Whalen gives most of the credit for the center and the award to former City Coordinator Pat Wingo, who worked on the grant application and the partnership with Fort Thomas. “It really does take someone who understands the system to push that through,” Whalen said. As she was leaving her post earlier this year, Wingo spoke of the center as one her top accomplishments during her tenure. “It further emphasizes that Florence and Fort Thomas are cities that understand that by working together we can accomplish more than we can by working alone,” Wingo said. “Both communities could have submitted CDBG applications for other projects. However, we recognized that new facilities for the Children’s Advocacy Center had to be our shared priority.”