The time is now to help
Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015
Opinion
DELAVAN ENTERPRISE
Page 7
Older woman struggles with medical expenses Dear W.C., I am an 80-year-old widow who needs help. I have been renting the same house for the past 10 years, ever since my husband died. I am having a hard time paying my rent this month due to a car repair and I had to go see the dentist. My car repair was much more expensive than I had thought it would be and it took all my rent money I had set aside. I do not work and I live on Social Security. It is not much but I have always been able to get by. Now I am in terrible pain all the time due to several bad teeth in my mouth. The dentist told me to go see an oral surgeon, but I cannot afford that. I don’t know what to do about this as I can barely eat or even think straight with this pain. If you were only able to help me with one thing, at this point I would choose getting my teeth fixed even if it meant I would become homeless. I can’t continue living like this. Please, please can you help me? I have never asked for help before in my life. This is very humbling for me. Dear readers, I went to the address listed to make an unplanned visit. It was a small older house. My knock at the door was answered by a senior woman. She recognized me and, after I showed my identification, she invited me inside. Even before I had introduced myself I recognized she was in pain. She visibly winced and was holding the side of her face. I asked the woman how bad her dental pain was on a scale from one to 10 and her answer was nine. I was filled with sympathy over the pain she was suffering in. Dental pain is usually very intense and unbearable. I could see that was what she was enduring.
them the same, but it is funny how different they turned out.” She shook her head By sadly as she looked down at SAL her clasped hands. I reached DIMICELI Columnist over and grasped her hands and she looked up in surprise. She smiled and said, “Do you know how long it has been After a brief conversation since someone has talked to I began to ask important me or held my hand? Do you questions about her family know what it is like to live and finances. She sadly in pain and fear and not have shared with me, “My husband any friends or family to turn died 10 years ago and one of to?” I looked her in the eyes my sons died three years ago. and said, “Yes I do. I see it I have one other son, but I often. That is why I am here. never see him and he never To find a way to help you and calls. He lives out of state.” if I can’t give you the help I asked more details about myself I will find someone her troubled son and saw the that can.” She was crying pain she suffered from that again saying, “God bless you, as well. The senior woman thank you, thank you.” I told tearfully shared with me her to not thank me but to the details of her husband’s thank all of you who would painful death from cancer make her assistance even 10 years previous, and then possible. three years ago she lost her We went on to going over son to cancer as well. The her financial problems. She broken hearted woman’s showed me the dentist bill voice broke as she said, and car repair bills that had “Only the good die young thrown off her whole budget. because both those men were I looked them over and so good to everyone they they were not extravagant. knew, including me. The only The repairs on the car were family I have left, my son within reason and necessary living in Texas, never even to safely operate her vehicle. calls. He is so wrapped up in The dentist bill was for his own life, he does not care x-rays and an exam. The if I am even alive.” dentist had given her an oral I could see this weighed surgeon to call and he also heavily on her heart. I let happened to be one of the her talk about her sons and oral surgeons we have used she told me how different for The Time Is Now to Help they had always been “right clients in the past. I knew from the start,” as she put he would do a good job and it. One son had always been give us the best price possible compassionate and loving, for the extractions needed to did what was right, and was relieve her pain. I told her she always there to help. The needed to have this done as woman said, “He was just soon as possible. I pulled up like his father. They were his number from my contacts always close. He took it so and called to approve her hard when his father died. surgery. I handed the phone He just never seemed to get to her so she could make an over it.” Then she told me appointment. She looked about her other son that she surprised but took the phone never saw. “He was always from me as I told her to impatient and jealous over make an appointment. After his brother. I always loved she made her appointment, I
made a call to a volunteer to set up a driver for her day of surgery. The senior woman was even more surprised when she heard me making these arrangements. She said, “I am speechless. I have had no one even care about me for years and now you even make sure I have someone take me for my surgery. I don’t know how to thank you for this.” I said, “The only thanks we need are prayers for The Time Is Now to Help and all the people we help.” The woman’s reply was, “You don’t have to ask me for that. I am already thanking God for you.” After a thorough review of her finances, I could see she was just getting by before these two emergency expenses. I set up an appointment to have the remainder of the work needed on her car completed. We paid her overdue rent to help relieve some of the financial strain. When I finally got up to leave the senior woman wrapped her arms around me and gave me a long hug. She kissed my cheek and said, “You are an angel W.C.” Several weeks later the senior woman’s whole life was improved. She is now pain free and her mouth improves daily. The volunteer continues to check on her regularly and is happy to report the woman is very independent. After spending time together and some food deliveries, especially soft foods and soup as she was recuperating from her surgery, they have formed a wonderful friendship. The senior woman that was once all alone now has a friend. She also has started going to church with the volunteer. The once lonely, sad and pain-filled woman is a completely different person. Her life has been renewed thanks to all of you making
our mission possible. At my follow-up visit, the senior widow wanted me to share with all of you her heartfelt thanks for all we do together. I had previously explained to her how I do not do this alone, it is all of us together. She asked me to tell all of you, “Please tell everyone that is involved with The Time Is Now to Help that they are in my prayers. I am so thankful for all you have done to rekindle my life. Every day has once again become such a blessing. I have no more pain. I am not living in financial fear and I know I am not alone.” With that I gave her a hug and told her, “You will never be alone again.” As she hugged me in return, both our eyes were filled with happy tears. Thank you to Richard H. Driehaus for providing The Time Is Now to Help with a $30,000 matching grant so we may continue providing desperately needed help to those turning to us for assistance. Thank you to all of you for matching these grants and making our mission of relieving the pains of poverty even possible. Please donate at this time knowing your donation will be matched dollar for dollar by Richard Driehaus and 100 percent will be used to provide assistance to the poverty stricken. Thank you and God bless you.
charitable organization licensed in Wisconsin and Illinois. You will receive a tax-deductible, itemized thank-you receipt.
A very special thank you: Fox Charities, Dick and Jean Honeyager, Richard H. Driehaus, Pentair Foundation, Paul Ziegler, Kunes Country Ford-Lincoln Delavan, The Pentair Foundation, Unilock, Lake Geneva Economic Development, LaVerne and Jean Reu, Martin Group, John Stensland and Family, Sid and Patty Johnson, Millenium Auto Exchange, Dousman Transport Delavan Terminal, Williams Bay Elementary Student Council and Students, Charles Carlson, Marilynn Kalman, James and Janet Jurik, Ellen Flanagan, Clark and Charlene Hatfield, Charles and Nancy Castelein, Ada Duffey, Robert and Mary Winter, Victor and Doris Kranitz, James and Susan Mirabella, Jr., Joseph and Cecilia Kowalski, Harry and Patricia Buchert, Jr., Nancy Yaeger, Jean Zitzler, Darrell and Elizabeth Frederick, John Poiron, William and Dorothy Tookey, John and Marian McClellan, Dennis and Carol Frederick, Gerald and Joyce Byers, Don and Mary Stobber, Francis and Eleanor Wall, Marvin and Audrey Hersko, Allan and Nancy Cody, Timothy Greeene, Ann Alger, Jack Meredith, Virgil and Sharon Wuttke, Health and happiness, James Borden, W.C. Family God bless everyone, Resource Center/Food Pantry W.C./Sal volunteers, and all the God loving volunteers of all our caring pantries, all of you Please help: There who support The Time Is are many coming to us in Now to Help donation boxes, desperation. Together we make a big difference. Make and the businesses that allow our donation boxes. Anyone checks payable to The Time who would like a Time Is Is Now to Help, P.O. Box Now donation box in your 1, Lake Geneva, WI 53147. The Time Is Now to Help is a business, please call (262) federally recognized 501(c)3 249-7000.
The capitol beat
Walker’s school public funding plan is cloudy
Officials for both public and private schools are puzzled by Gov. Scott Walker’s budget for elementary and secondary education. They agree that more state taxpayer support is needed for each of them to succeed. Walker’s budget calls for expanding the voucher program that provides state help for the poor to send their children to participating voucher schools. The program has been limited largely to Racine and Milwaukee, but the governor’s budget removes participation ceilings. The governor’s budget calls for a $150 per-pupil reduction
money. Public school officials suggest the total loss, including the state cutback, By could come to $127 million in MATT the first year of the biennium. POMMER In addition, the shift in Columnist money would come even if the child entering a voucher school had not previously been enrolled in a public school in in state aid for each child in public schools in the first year the district. Jim Bender, who, as of the new biennium. It also president of School Choice in would scale back the size Wisconsin, has led the fight of the vouchers and lower income limits for participation. for more voucher schools, said those schools “need proper But the budget is cloudy funding or they won’t open for everyone because public more seats.” Lurking in the school budgets would be tapped to provide the voucher back of the financing question is whether more voucher
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schools would provide a better education. That fight bubbled up as public school administrators assailed the governor’s approach. John Forester, director of government relations for School Administrators Alliance, also noted the Walker administration expects a 4.7 percent increase in general tax revenue in the first year of the biennium. “Despite overwhelming evidence that private school vouchers do not improve student achievement and lack adequate accountability to the public, Gov. Walker continues to pursue private school voucher expansion,” said Forester. “The ultimate objective of voucher advocates is a statewide system of privateschool vouchers for all Wisconsin children,” he added. The governor wasn’t buying criticism of his budget ideas. ‘’To me, the losers are the
people who want to grow the state government beyond the state’s ability to pay,” Walker said. But, to hear both the private and public school leaders, the financial picture for the upcoming school year is at best unclear. The local school budget issues have gone largely unnoticed in the media because of the controversy over Walker’s budget plans for the University of Wisconsin System. His budget calls for a $300 million, two-year reduction in state support for the system. Walker also proposed eliminating the “Wisconsin Idea” of public service that dates back more than a century. The governor retreated, first suggesting the Wisconsin Idea change was a “drafting error,” then said it was caused by confusion among his staff. The governor suggested the budget issue could be partially solved if the university faculty would teach an additional
course. University officials predicted that other topnotch schools would raid the faculty ranks, offering other jobs to UW faculty who are leaders in their disciplines. Walker’s move attracted national attention because he is preparing to run for national office. Two weeks before he released his budget, the governor urged local school officials to encourage high schools students to think about going to technical and vocational schools A two-year technical school education “is just as noble and needed as those of their classmates who go on to a four-year college or university,” Walker said in a speech in Milwaukee. Matt Pommer has been covering state government for 35 years. The opinions expressed here are his and not necessarily of this newspaper or Southern Lakes Newspapers LLC.
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