The
Graphic - Advocate WEDNESDAY
|OCTOBER 28, 2015|VOLUME 126| ISSUE 43
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Rockwell City moves ahead with CDBG application By Erin Sommers Graphic-Advocate Editor
Rockwell City council members authorized city officials to take the first steps in applying for a Community Development Block Grant program that would fund repairs to up to six houses. The competitive program has, in the past, funded as many as 10 houses per community, Mid-Iowa Development Association Council of Governments Local Assistance
Manager Shirley Helgevold told Rockwell City Council members. The federal CDBG program recently changed how grant applications will be scored, Helgevold said, offering a different point scale than what they used in recent years. The changes include specifying how many points – up to five – a city can get based on how much money it contributes. To get the most points, Rockwell City would need to contribute about $18,000, but paying $13,000 would net the city four points. Cities also earn points based on whether they
have completed an environmental report, selected a technical services contractor, administrator, which MIDAS will do for a fee, and for identifying what area of town city officials hope to improve. The smaller the area, based on the number of houses included, the more points a city can get. Rockwell City Council voted to use MIDAS to administer the application and grant, and asked Helgevold to drive through the western half of town, from Third Street west, for a windshield survey, which assesses the state of the houses in that area.
More than 100 Rockwell City homeowners submitted the preapplication, but Helgevold warned that doesn’t mean finding even six qualified homeowners for the program will be easy. About 90 of the preapplicants appeared to meet the income requirements, but “45 probably won’t be qualified,” she said, adding successful applicants must be current on their mortgage, property taxes and utilities. Other homeowners will move before the grant is awarded, or otherwise leave the home. “We have struggled in some areas
to just get five,” she said. A number of the applications were concentrated on the western end of Main and Court streets, with others located all over the city. If selected, a homeowner can get up to $25,000 to use for home improvements. Houses in need of two or more repairs, such as a new roof, siding or windows, electrical work or other improvements, help increase the points the city receives on its application, Helgevold said. The funds are awarded to qualified homeowners based on income levels, with the lowest-earning
qualified applicants being selected first, Helgevold said. A single person could earn up to $34,650 a year and still be eligible for the program. A family of four could earn $49,450 and be eligible. Helgevold made a similar presentation to Lake City Council members following her Rockwell City presentation. No additional information was immediately available about the information presented in Lake City, which had about 50 people submit preapplications.
Students pitch in to help feed families in Tanzania By Erin Sommers Graphic-Advocate Editor
Emilee Green, right, and Max Hardy, left, pour ingredients into a bag that will contain enough food for six meals. The food will be distributed to needy families in Tanzania, in East Africa. ALL GRAPHIC-ADVOCATE PHOTOS/ERIN SOMMERS
These bags containing rice, beans, soy protein, dried vegetables, vitamins and seasonings will be sent to Tanzania by Outreach, an Iowa-based organization that distributes meals in the United States and abroad.
SCC tech back in place following tornado cleanup By Erin Sommers Graphic-Advocate Editor South Central Calhoun High School ended up with a few more new pieces of electronic equipment this fall, after movers and cleaners damaged some of the boxes containing the older items. A tornado hit the high school May 10, tearing off the roof. A subsequent rainstorm doused the building, damaging some equipment, mostly projectors and a few computers on the school’s top floor, technology director Julia Jacobs told school board members at their Oct. 19 meeting. “We actually lost more in the unpacking because a lot of boxes were dropped,” she said. The school gained five new Mac computers, a laser printer and a few other items. The district was able to keep its website and email service up and running after the tornado, thanks to help from the Prairie Lakes Area
Education Agency, which moved the servers from the high school to the middle school in Rockwell City, Jacobs said. While the roof and ceiling repairs were underway, Jacobs was able to complete an update of the high school’s wireless network, which required about 2,000 feet of wiring to be installed. Financial help also came from an unexpected source, she said. “State Farm wanted to help us out,” she said, adding the insurance agency put three school projects on the crowdfunding site donorschoose. org. Two of the projects have been fully funded and the third, a request for cooking equipment for the foods class, has gotten about $500 in donations pledged so far. In total, State Farm collected about $5,000 for the school, providing money for new computer chairs, a green screen and microscopes for a science laboratory. Superintendent Jeff Kruse also offered the SCC school board some good news. As of the official school
enrollment count day, Oct. 1, the district had increased its enrollment by 16 students from last year. “It’s all positive,” Kruse said. At the high school, Principal Randy Martin said teachers are working to find ways to increase student test scores by just a small margin. “If we can move one student in math and one in reading (to proficient), then we’re in safe harbor,” Martin said, describing an educational testing term that indicates a school is making progress in improving scores, even if it does not meet the achievement goal set by state officials. In safe harbor, SCC would no longer be considered a District in Need of Assistance – the high school classes need to show a 10 percent improvement, which is just one student per subject. School board members unanimously approved the low bid to remove about a dozen trees along the SCC High School track. The trees’ roots have been growing under the track, causing damage to the track surface.
Rev. Beth Harbaugh describes Tanzania, a country in East Africa, as the cradle of humanity. It’s a phrase scientists, historians and anthropologists use, too, to describe the country where the oldest human remains ever found were unearthed. Harbaugh, pastor of Lake City Union Church, attended a conference at which pastors packaged thousands of meals to be sent to Tanzania. As she did, Harbaugh began to think of a way to get Calhoun County residents involved in a similar project. She noted that Tanzania is also home to Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain. “The mountain that is highest for people to climb is for the people who are hungry,” Harbaugh said. With the cooperation of the Lake City Ministerial Association, Harbaugh approached South Central Calhoun Elementary School Principal Nicole McChesney last spring, asking if the school would be interested in partnering with the association to host a meal packaging event, through Outreach, a company based in Union, Iowa. McChesney said yes, and last week, brought a speaker to talk with students about her experiences in Tanzania. Students spent the rest of the week learning about hunger and
food insecurity around the world, as well as more about Africa in general and Tanzania specifically. By Harbaugh’s count, students and churches raised about $3,500 to send sealed bags containing beans, rice, soy protein, dried vegetables, vitamins and seasonings to Tanzania. Each bag – students were expected to package about 14,000 – provides six meals, requires only water and 20 minutes of boiling to cook and is shelf stable in the package for up to two years, Outreach officials said on their website. Friday morning, SCC elementary schoolers formed four assembly lines and quickly picked up the scooping and pouring skills needed to fill the bags. One thing Lynn Egesdal of Milford, who has been to Tanzania four times, told the students earlier in the week was what food poor Tanzanians are likely to eat – beans, scooped with a small ball of ugali, corn flour cooked with water. “It fills up their stomachs so they don’t get hungry later on,” Egesdal said of the starchy finished product. “Occasionally they have rice. Rice is for guests.” The students on Friday remembered Egesdal’s descriptions, with one student in particularly happily noting that her task for the day was to put the prized grain in each bag. Outreach’s founders first visited Tanzania on a medical mission trip in 2004, Event Coordinator Leon
Sporrer said. On that trip, they met children, sitting alone in a ward, who said they had been left there to die. The couple decided to try to prevent as many deaths from malnourishment as possible, and began taking the meal packs to Tanzania. In the years since, they have taken more than 300 million meals to the country. Teachers and community volunteers, even McChesney, donned hairnets and aprons and pitched in along the assembly line. At one point, McChesney numbered each of the students on one line, then called the numbers, helping the children fill their bags a bit faster. “Not so fast we spill,” she added, as the students got ahead of themselves and bumped hands over a funnel. “We don’t want to spill and waste it.” Egesdal, during her visit, brought a variety of tools and toys from Tanzania, giving the children a glimpse at life across the globe. Harbaugh said that was one of her goals in setting up the program. “These kids are all realizing we’re connected,” she said. “It’s great because it’s hands-on ministry. Not only are people getting fed, these kids are learning a very important life lesson.” She and McChesney praised the elementary school students for their work, and their enthusiasm. “The kids are doing a great job,” Harbaugh said.
MORE PICTURES PAGE 2
Vetter stops by Shady Oaks to celebrate national award By Erin Sommers Graphic-Advocate Editor Jack Vetter, founder of Omahabased Vetter Health Services, was full of praise for Shady Oaks Care Center when he visited last week. “I’m truly impressed,” Vetter told Shady Oaks staff and residents during a celebration of the center receiving the American Health Care Association’s Bronze award for its commitment to quality. “It was fun walking up the walk, walking into the very beautiful facility.” Of the 15,000 nursing homes in the United States, about 11,000 belong to the American Health Care Association, Vetter said. Of those, just 545 received the Bronze award, which is the first step in a threeprong process that sets up quality control goals for nursing home staff members to meet. Shady Oaks Administrator Jennifer Blair called the three award levels, and the work to reach them, a “pathway to a journey towards achieving quality” care for residents. Each step requires detailed adherence to tracking progress and measurements of success, she added. “We are family serving family and it means a lot to everyone to be recognized,” Blair said. “The new climate (for nursing facilities) is to be resident centered. Shady Oaks is committed to being the best.” Vetter complimented all of the
Shady Oaks Care Center Administartor Jennifer Blair, left, and Director of Nursing Jenny Vote, right, accept an award from Vetter Health Services CEO Jack Vetter during a ceremony at the care center last week. GRAPHIC-ADVOCATE PHOTO/ERIN SOMMERS facility’s employees for helping make the award possible. “It’s a whole team of people and you couldn’t do it without your team,” he said. “Thank you for quality of life and quality of care.” About one-third of Vetter Health Services’ 32 nursing homes have received the Bronze Award in the years since the American Health Care Association began the program, Vetter said. His company’s goal is not to push the facilities toward applying for the award until they feel they and their staff are ready to keep
up with the rigorous requirements to receive it. For a time “we just didn’t have our support staff ready to keep pursuing it,” he said, adding the company has its own quality metrics which can measure success. The goal of Vetter Health Services and its employees, he said, is to provide dignity of life and quality of care. Shady Oaks meets those goals. “Their quality of care measurements are high, their surveys are good,” he said.