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11 May

Posted at 15:19h in Community News
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A new bike-sharing program at Taylor University is hoping to entice students to ditch the cars and instead pick up a bike for campus travel. Dubbed “Taylor Taxi,” the private Christian college’s newest program designed to promote and encourage sustainability transforms abandoned bicycles and turns them into public, free to use bicycles students can use to get around campus. Mike Guebert, professor of earth and environmental science at Taylor and the program’s director, said the bike-sharing program is part of the university’s focus on providing sustainable and healthy options for students. The program is part of the larger Up-Cycle Project that aims to make a sustainable transportation plan, with an emphasis on use of bicycles for student and faculty use, both on and off campus. Funding for the Up-Cycle Project came from grants by the Woman’s Giving Circle, the Ball Brothers Foundation and the Community Foundation of Grant County. In all totaling a little under $30,000 was raised for the program. “We want to make it more appealing to students to ride their bike instead of their car around campus,” Guebert said. The project launched with a total of 33 repurposed bicycles painted yellow and marked to let students and faculty know it’s a...

22 Apr

Posted at 10:17h in A Message from Dawn, Community News, Featured Story
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I feel pretty confident that Hoosiers appreciate spring more than any other season…and more than any other state in the union for that matter!  We have such long, frigid winters that we long for the first signs of spring which bring about feelings of pure, unadulterated joy.  We hear birds chirping, we see trees blossoming, we notice tractors plowing the fields, and we realize that B & K is finally open for the season—Ah, yes, spring has sprung! Spring!  It’s this new life, new hope, new beginning that we experience this time each year that makes me wonder whether (pun intended) to feel sorry for weathermen or not.  I mean honestly, they are wrong A LOT…maybe more than any other career.  What if doctors got it wrong as much as weathermen?  Yikes!  But, weather is fickle.  Even the best tools and education can show you one thing and then the wind blows, literally, and it’s a whole new ball game—or a cancelled ball game if we’re being honest.  But, then I saw a weatherman on then news this week saying, ‘You’re welcome!’ in regard to this beauteous maximus weather we’ve been experiencing as of late.  And, I thought….’REALLY!?  Seriously!?’  Actually...

15 Mar

Posted at 16:54h in A Message from Dawn, Community News, Featured Story
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    If you’re never around kids you need to change that.  Kids are insightful.  Kids are truthful.  Kids are downright funny.  My son and I were having a lazy Saturday conversation with my niece, Katie, who was telling us all about how she knows algebra.  Uh, she’s 8.  We asked how she could possibly know algebra as a 3rd grader and she said, “Easy, y = 25.”  Well, there you have it folks.  All of you who may have struggled with algebra in school just needed to know the super-secret formula y=25.  Upon further questioning, to better understood the logic of the 8-year-old mind, we discovered that (1) apparently you only solve for y and nothing else and (2) y is the 25th letter of the alphabet; thus, y=25.  After the explanation, the look she gave us was clearly face language for “Duh!”.   Flash forward a few weeks and I’m helping my 10-year-old niece, Kamryn, with math homework.  She’s exasperated.  She’s brilliant and even aced the iRead test last year, but doesn’t think math is her thing.  So, there is sighing and erasing and clock-watching.  After a brief 15 minutes of changing fractions to percentages and a celebratory fist-bump, we are done. ...

01 Mar

Posted at 08:37h in A Message from Dawn, Community News, Featured Story
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I got a wicked sinus infection last week that had me down for the count all weekend.  I only tell you this as a mild excuse for binge-watching the entire first season of Fuller House on Netflix on Saturday.  Uncle Joey with his ‘cut it out’ line, Uncle Jessie’s ‘have mercy’ mantra, and Stephanie’s ‘how rude’ refrain gave me the nostalgia feels. Maybe it was because the show aired before I had either a car payment or a mortgage, but times seemed simpler then.  The humor, innocent; the jokes, corny.  Times were simpler. As kids we would play outside all day long in the summertime…ALL DAY LONG.  The rule was that we had to be home when the street lights came on and even then we’d negotiate to play just a little bit longer.  I remember well coming home hot and sweaty, lathering up in a hot bath, putting on cool PJ’s, and filling a Dixie cup with precisely counted M&M’s as our snack while we watched the Donny and Marie variety show—she was a little bit country; he  was a little bit rock and roll.  We really knew how to squeeze every ounce of opportunity out of life before we started...

18 Jun

Posted at 10:15h in Community News
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Every year, 12.7 million people in the United States are raped, stalked, or physically abused. Hands of Hope, a division of Family Service Society, has the goal to eliminate that risk in Grant County for everyone at risk, male or female. They provide a shelter for victims to stay in for up to 45 days, counseling, support groups, and legal process assistance. Hands of Hope “exists to prevent domestic and sexual violence and stalking through education, advocacy, and intervention strategies.” The Community Foundation of Grant County has given multiple grants to Hands of Hope to help them fulfill that purpose. One recent of $5,800 went towards counseling domestic violence victims and their travel expenses, health and prescription medicine for clients, and a store at the shelter for clients to purchase goods they need. Another grant in December 2013 of $19,458 helped with much-needed repairs and maintenance, like utilities, lawn care, snow removal, carpet cleaning, and new sheets, that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. It also helped kick off Expect Respect, a campaign geared towards motivating young people to not tolerate stalking or domestic violence. Linda Wilk, the director of Hands of Hope, and Susan Miller, Director of Compliance and Resource Development, have the goal...