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Habitat for Humanity Breaks Ground in Nelsonville, The
Athens (OH) Messenger, Monday, November 5, 2001 Habitat for Humanity Breaks Ground in
Nelsonville
After the sawdust settles, a Buchtel-area family will have a place
in Frog Hollow to call home thanks to efforts of the Ohio General
Assembly, Habitat for Humanity and many other organizations who
are trying to eradicate substandard housing. | top | Habitat Starts Work on 9-Member House
The nine-member Meyers family will have a home to call their own
in about three months. | top | First Lady Taft Visits Coalton Habitat Site
Appropriately clad in jeans and a Circle Of Hope t-shirt and equipped with nail belt and hammer, Ohio's First Lady Hope Taft was eager to lend a hand at Jackson-Vinton Habitat For Humanity's site of two new homes in Coalton last Monday. A round of applause broke out from the generous crowd as Ohio's First Lady Hope Taft emerged from her car at the site of the two latest homes under construction by Jackson-Vinton Habitat for Humanity in Coalton on Monday morning. Mrs. Taft is well known for rolling up her sleeves and getting to the heart of any matter. Her first experience with Habitat was in Canton. She found the experience so satisfying that she immediately established the Circle Of Hope, an ambitious program that partners with 25 Habitat affiliates to build 25 homes in Ohio in conjunction with Habitat's 25th Anniversary. "The Circle Of Hope," Mrs. Taft has said, "is about creating neighborhoods, inspiring love, bringing happiness, and building hope." The First Lady has dedicated herself to mobilizing Ohio's communities in promoting both volunteerism and positive youth development. She has encouraged business partners to step to the plate for Habitat. The two Coalton houses built this year have gotten assistance through the Ohio State Building and Construction Trade Council. Mrs. Taft is personally visiting each of the 25 houses under construction. The Coalton home is her 8th visit. She arrived in jeans and Circle of Hope t-shirt and soon strapped on her nail apron and wielded a hammer, eager to do her part. She was welcomed by Habitat President Bob Peterson, State Representative John Carey, Coalton Mayor Margie Stiffler-Preston, and a host of Habitat Board members and volunteers. Peterson declared Taft "the most dynamic woman I've ever met, next to my wife" and said "Ohio is truly blessed to have Hope Taft working for us." Mrs. Taft could not have been more complimentary about the work accomplished by the local affiliate. She signed her name above the door of the home soon to be occupied by Kim Woods and her children, Aric, Alisha, and Lacie. Kim was in tears as she expressed her gratitude. She told Taft that she had seen a meteor shower and "wished on a star for a new house." Woods wants to "help some more" and said she's met "a lot of really nice people" through this project. "That's the way it's supposed to be," she said, "people helping others." Taft explained that Habitat is such a satisfying project not only because you get to the end of a day and "see what's been done" but "you know you've touched a family, feel the warmth of the community, and feel God's love." Terri E. Donlin, Director of Development for the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation of Nelsonville, was on hand to present a $2,500 check to Habitat President Bob Peterson to help with the current project. Taft presented Woods with a recycling bin and packet of wildflower seeds from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. The seeds of hope, she said, "it's what we're planting, a bright future and a wonderful life." Then ceremony then moved next door to the home that will be occupied next month by James, Nancy and Jessica Barnes. Pastor Dale Lykins of the Christ United Methodist Church of Jackson dedicated the home as a "place of peace and safety" and thanked all the volunteers that made it possible. The morning ended with refreshments prepared by members of the Habitat Board. Article reprinted with permission of The Wellston Telegram. | top |
First Lady Hope Taft visited Coalton Monday to promote her Circle of Hope project. The Habitat for Humanity house located at 66 Church St., is the eighth Circle of Hope house in Ohio. It is part of Taft's commitment to help build 25 Habitat for Humanity homes in honor of the organization's 25th anniversary. Taft signed the wood over the front door "Circle of Hope
House, Aug. 27, 2001, Hope Taft, First Lady of Ohio" and then
drew eight stars above it. Taft spoke to a crowd of approximately 20 people who gathered
at the house. Kim Woods and her four children will move in the Circle of Hope
house at the beginning of next year. She said that for her, the
house was a wish come true. Taft gave the Woods family a tile commemorating the fact the house is a Circle of Hope Habitat House. She also gave them a recycle bin and packet of wildflower seeds from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. "These are seeds of hope for a bright future for you," Taft said. Woods is excited to be getting a Habitat for Humanity house. "I was starting to get to the point in life when I thought there was no good left in the world," she said. "I was wrong." Besides visiting the Woods' house, Taft was also there for the dedication of the Habitat house which is located next door. "You are really creating a community here and that is wonderful," she said. "It takes help from all types of people to build a house." James Barnes and his family expect to move into their Habitat home either this month or next month after everything is painted. "I think God had everything to do with this," he said. "I remember when the house was nothing more than a hole in the ground. Now it is three bedrooms, with a deck and a wonderful kitchen. It is very well built." Taft toured the Barnes home and then began working on the Woods home. As part of the Circle of Hope project, Taft plans to work on each house. Taft became involved with Habitat for Humanity when she went to a first lady conference and learned that other first ladies had been building homes in their states. Taft later helped build a house in Canton and enjoyed the experience so much that she agreed to help with the Circle of Hope Project. According to First Lady Taft's office, the Circle of Hope house
in Coalton received financial assistance from the Osteopathic Heritage
Foundation of Nelsonville who agreed to help support the Vinton/Jackson
Habitat for Humanity, as well as the Washington County Habitat
for Humanity. | top | Volunteer Prenatal Efforts
Lead to Healthier Babies; CHAP Program Helps in Minority Neighborhoods
Dramatically fewer low birth-weight babies are being born to The rate of babies of low birth weight born to clients of the
Community To me, it's just really exciting information," said Dr. Mark
M. Low birth weight is the factor most closely associated with infant More recent countywide figures for the rate of low birth-weight
babies The nonprofit CHAP program, based in the Ocie Hill neighborhood
center, More than 200 potential problems have been identified by CHAP
advisers, CHAP is doing a great job," said Mansfield-Richland County
Health More important than saving millions and millions of dollars in
medical Article and photo were reprinted with permission of the Mansfield, OH, News Journal, a Gannett newspaper and part of the Newspaper Network of Central Ohio. | top |
Third Avenue resident Rhonda Powell was still new to the Community Health Access Project (CHAP) advisers women from her
own They'd get me a cab ride if I needed to get to the doctor's," Powell They helped me with the other two kids, and they're not even in
the Daughter Shenell, 19 months old, was born with no complications
and is Powell is among many Mansfield area mothers who have become fans
of the CHAP was initiated at the Ocie Hill Center in 1999 to serve mothers
in The baby's fine," she said. The CHAP advisers are wonderful.
I really Jennifer Thompson of North Benton Street enrolled in CHAP when
she was CHAP's trained advisers are Kimberly Phinessee, Cathy Wellington,
Ruthie Article reprinted with permission of the Mansfield, OH, News Journal, a Gannett newspaper and part of the Newspaper Network of Central Ohio. | top | City Leaders Form Group To Find Health
Care For Uninsured
Michael Harrington was juggling college and work when his diabetes was diagnosed in 1998. Like 126,000 other Franklin County residents, he doesn't have health insurance. In the past few years, he has accumulated $15,000 in medical bills and has had a hard time scheduling appointments with specialists. "You're just kind of stuck in the middle without insurance. Everybody wants you to be in perfect health, and you want to be in perfect health, but it sometimes feels like you're only going to get so much care, so much attention,'' the 32-year-old Columbus man said yesterday. Prompted by stories such as Harrington's, Columbus leaders are banding together to try to smooth the road for the uninsured. Following up on an effort started in 1998 by the Columbus Medical Association, city power brokers have formed Access HealthColumbus. The group includes the representatives from Franklin County hospitals, government agencies, philanthropic groups, health organizations and corporations. It is pushing a communitywide effort to make sure everyone has access to health care, regardless of ability to pay. Getting more people on health plans, making sure free and reduced-cost care is more readily available and breaking down language and cultural barriers are critical steps. Within the next year or so, Access HealthColumbus likely will announce some programs that will translate directly into better patient care, said Philip Cass, chief executive officer of the Columbus Medical Association Foundation. A low-cost insurance plan for small businesses and a countywide data bank that matches uninsured patients with doctors both are possibilities. "All hospitals in our community provide free care, and many doctors provide free care,'' Cass said. "The issue is, there has never been a rationing of that.'' Michelle Vander Stouw, program officer for the foundation, said that although Access HealthColumbus is in its infancy, it eventually could make a difference in improving the health of residents. The kind of widespread commitment associated with the program is sometimes lacking in such efforts because individual groups are worried they'll lose out if the system is changed, Vander Stouw said. "There's not a health-care dollar anywhere that doesn't have somebody's name on it,'' she said. Columbus leaders acknowledge that they're setting some ambitious goals. "What you don't see us doing is standing here with a new insurance card for everyone,'' Cass said. "Maybe that'll happen someday.'' The medical-assocation foundation and the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation yesterday announced $1 million in grants to help the city move in the right direction. The Children's Defense Fund-Ohio will investigate the county's use of Healthy Start Plus, which offers low-cost health coverage to eligible children up to age 19 and to pregnant women. A focus will be finding ways to make sure children are re-enrolled in the program as long as they remain eligible. Depending on the individual case, parents have to fill out paperwork every six or 12 months to stay on Healthy Start. Many fall off the rolls as the months and years tick by, said Mary D. Wachtel, a health advocate with the nonprofit agency. "We want to make sure families understand when they're eligible,'' she said. The Ohio Primary Care Association will investigate how to unite uninsured patients with doctors who will treat them regularly and why some people who do have insurance aren't taking the best advantage of it. "I think in any community, it is a big secret where you can get free care,'' said Kathleen Gmeiner, associate director of community-outreach services for the group. "They end up at the E.R. and they end up at the hospital, and that's not good for anyone.'' Jewish Family Services will recruit and train interpreters to help foreign-born residents navigate the health-care system. Reprinted with permission from The Columbus Dispatch. | top | Grant awards will fund area children, housing
Nelsonville - Two Athens County human services coalitions will
receive awards totaling almost $90,000 from the Osteopathic Heritage
Foundation of Nelsonville. | top | These Doctors Specialize In Aiding The Needy
A little more than a decade ago, the freshly interned Dr. Mark Redding launched his medical career in Alaska on the lip of the Bering Sea 40 miles above the Arctic Circle. Today, when he talks about "businessmen" physicians who have traded Hippocratic promises for Porsches, some within the healing arts likely wish he were back in a remote pocket of that land of the midnight sun. Decisions about basic medical care, Redding says, should be made in neighborhoods and communities. "We've got to get communities back involved with their health and social welfare," Redding said recently. "Our country's first calling told us that you can't make decisions from the other side of the ocean." During his years in Alaska, Redding — along with his physician wife, Sarah — served scattered, primitive hunting and fishing villages. Suspicious of outsiders, the locals endured an alarming rate of infant mortality and death from largely treatable illnesses. The weather was brutal, the terrain formidable. Some patients could be reached only by dog sled or plane. Still, even in conditions so frigid that IV bags had to be taped to the backs of patients' necks to withstand freezing, the big chill lay in the attitude of the patients toward non-natives. To reach those they hoped to serve, the couple employed women of the villages to build a bridge to medical care. In one goal alone — the monitoring of pregnant women — the advisers helped lower the infant-mortality rate from 10 a year in 1988 and 1989 to one in 1990. Now the Reddings — who after Alaska established community health-adviser programs in Baltimore, Md.; Mansfield, Ohio; and Knox County — are launching a similar undertaking on the South and East sides of Columbus. Funded for three years with a $5 million grant from the Columbus-based Osteopathic Heritage Foundation, the Reddings are hiring 16 to 18 health advisers to get started. "We want to hire people who are intrinsically connected to their communities," Redding said. "They are going to be culturally connected, will know all of the verbal and nonverbal skills as well as all the nuances you can't get even with a Ph.D. In 90 percent of the cases, they will know the person they are going to see." The pay is low, Redding acknowledged. "They could be making more money at McDonald's," he said of the advisers in Mansfield when that program began. "Two-thirds of our advisers were below the poverty line." Yet the advisers believe they make a difference. "They can say to the people they are seeing, 'I've been down here before where you are, and I know how to get out,' " Redding said. The Mansfield and Knox County programs have approximately 800 active clients. They are residents of economically depressed neighborhoods or rural areas who are seen by health advisers at least once a month. Until recently, the Reddings supported themselves largely through Mark's private pediatric practice in Mansfield. Increased demand on his time from the Community Health Adviser Program has made him cut back on his practice to 1 1/2 days per week, he said. The Osteopathic Heritage Foundation grant will permit him to receive a salary as director of CHAP in Ohio. His wife will receive a salary as an evaluator. Each will be paid $50,000 a year for the duration of the new grant. The program now beginning in Columbus, Redding said, will focus largely on "maternal and child health, adult and childhood chronic diseases." Citing statistics that show the infant-mortality rate in minority areas of Columbus is twice that among whites, Redding said, "Our main mission is to help culturally and economically isolated individuals overcome barriers to health care." According to program information, the area served will be bounded on the west by the Scioto River, the north by I-70 and the south by Rt. 104. The eastern boundary will be the bend of I-70 as it leaves the neighborhoods closest to Downtown. "Research shows this area has one of central Ohio's highest rates for infant mortality, mortality due to heart disease and cancer, and firearm injuries and deaths to children," said Rick Vincent, Heritage Foundation chief executive. Reprinted with permission of The Columbus Dispatch. | top | Alaskan Clinical Idea Will Get City Trial
A program that has improved the health of Alaska residents since the 1960s is the model for a similar effort that will be launched next month on Columbus' South Side. The Columbus Community Health Access Project will hire a nurse, social worker and doctor. Its target will be the 17,000 people who live in the area bounded by I-70 on the north and east, Rt. 104, and the Scioto River. "Research shows this area has one of central Ohio's highest rates for infant mortality, mortality due to heart disease and cancer, and firearm injuries and deaths to children,'' said Rick Vincent, chief executive officer of the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations, which are giving the program $3.5 million over three years. A key part of the project will be 16 to 18 South Side residents who will be hired as community-health advisers. From a storefront at 1475 E. Livingston Ave., they'll help their neighbors cut through red tape and get such services as prenatal care, other health care, housing and food, said Dr. Mark Redding, who worked with the Alaska program and is bringing the concept to Columbus with his wife, Sarah, who is also a doctor. "The health and social-service systems can be very intimidating, often keeping away those who need them the most. Under CHAP, the community health advisers serve as an ongoing resource to families,'' Mark Redding said. Advisers will visit South Side families, following a schedule based on what each family needs, and will be trained to recognize potential problems, although they will not diagnose illness or treat people. "The program is really about neighbors helping neighbors,'' Mark Redding said. "It's essential to hire folks right out of the community who can knock on the doors. They will have the trust of the residents in the community, and they will provide the culturally relevant link. "You don't want to have a stranger dressed in a suit coming in and knocking on the doors.'' Advisers will receive college credit for their training at Columbus State Community College. Besides helping people get basic health care, they will learn how to steer them to programs that can prepare them for jobs, teach them to read and help them escape domestic violence. The Franklin County Department of Jobs and Family Services likely will pay for the training, Vincent said. The Reddings have been talking to a number of community groups and agencies in planning the program, including area churches, the Families and Children First Council and the Livingston Avenue Collaborative for Community Development. They worked with the Alaska Community Health Aide Program for three years, beginning in 1989, and were based in the village of Kotzebue, north of Nome. In Alaska, more than 500 aides serve isolated areas. The couple started a CHAP program in Mansfield in Richland County when they moved there in 1998 and direct that program and one in Knox County, both in north central Ohio. Those programs are operating with the help of $1.5 million from the National Osteopathic Foundations. The foundations hope to provide money to start additional programs in other counties in central Ohio and in southeastern Ohio, Vincent said. "Our goal is to work with existing community resources and link people to them. We will not be duplicating efforts.'' Reprinted with permision from The Columbus Dispatch. | top | |
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