07.03.08
Quit Your Job, Help the Community!
CNN:Heroes
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (CNN) — If Russell Jackson has his way, any child who needs medical care but lacks the transportation to get there will have a safe and reliable alternative.
Recently, thanks in part to the unbelievable weather blasting this planet, from one corner to another, I have started to take a closer look at just how much community involvement the average person takes part in. More importantly, just what community issues I am involved in. With over $1 Billion in damaged and or lost property in my city alone as of this last month, I have been overwhelmed with a need to help. To be more active and productive in the big picture here. I don’t have much.. no car, living with friends/extended family. I have a decent job, but can’t seem to get much money saved, at least not in a quick manner. I have chronic asthma, had a heart attack last year.. so working around excessive levels of mold and feces “dust” is not really an option for me if I enjoy taking a normal breath …. ever. And I do. So, with health issues keeping me from proving some aspects beck to my community, I am looking for other long-term options. And then I came across this article about Mr, Russell Jackson. This man quit his job as a fireman in order to start up a non-profit group dedicated to providing transportation for kids in Alabama with medical needs. WHAT!?!
… Jackson is so determined that in 1997 he gave up his career as an Alabama firefighter, moved in with friends and dug into his retirement account to start Kid One Transport, a nonprofit organization that provides rides for needy children in his home state.
In 11 years, Kid One’s fleet of vans has ferried more than 16,000 kids to and from scheduled medical-related appointments all over Alabama
Amazing. How fulfilling and wonderful. I think it should almost be required for people to take some sort of training, to become educated in the benefits and more importantly the need for communities to come together via individual sacrifice. To quite your job, and one so admirable and needed as a firefighter, in order to help a greater need.. to serve a greater good…. that is amazing. May God bless me with such insight and caring. May He bless all of us with some of that. Could make for a better world, wouldn’t you agree?
06.27.08
When Energy Companies Hoard
I can’t hardly believe what I am about to write here. I work for an energy giant…. The office I work at is located in the now worlds-famous Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We are just getting started her with the clean up that follows the worst flooding here in recorded history. Here, along with so many other cities, counties, states we have a serious need for drinking water. Speaking specifically of Cedar Rapids, Iowa and its surrounding areas, we have no water/sewage treatment facilities. That has also been flooded and right no we are dumping as much as 25 million gallons of raw sewage per day into our Cedar River. The Cedar joins the Mississippi and so.. well, you can do the math.
So, with such a serious need for clean water, it has been refreshing that so many large business in Cedar Rapids have gone so far as to receive (purchase) large quantities of bottled water to distribute to those in need… for free. With all the water needs just in this town, I cant imagine a business trying to actually make money on any possible perceived “excess” of bottled water. And that is exactly what is going on at my particular place of employment.
The bottles are 16.9oz and are packed in 24 packs. THe “case” runs about $5.00 in most stores. I would guess that there are approximate 300 cases, so that’s about 7200 individual bottles. The company is no longer giving away any of the remainder. Instead they are selling the bottles at a rate of $0.75/bottle. That’s $18.00/case. At $5.00/case in the stores, that’s a $13.00 profit on every case. At approximately 300 cases that amounts to about $3900.00 profit. Going into the pockets of a select few to be sure. There are water fountains all over this building, and faucets. There is NO NEED to hoard all of those bottles and then try to make money off of them. Instead, why not take all that water out to one of the MANY relief distribution center located all over this city and ofer to help other s in need. This coming from the same place that thinks it ok AND legal to treat its contracted employees (temps) like absolute dog shit, simply for being a “temp”.
You GO, American big business!!!…………………………….
06.19.08
Common sense? Who said anything about common sense?
So, I live in Cedar Rapids, IA. The heartland of the Midwest. We bring to the world such things as corn, beef, pork, soy products, dairy products, as well as corn syrup and cereal. Quaker Oats, General Mills, ADM Sweeteners, Cargill, PMX Industries… just to name a few. We are also a major global communications hub, home to GoDaddy.com, telemarketing and customer service call centers, mortgage companies, highly ranked education systems.. a nice place to call home. Until the wrath of nature took us into her grip last week. All one has to do is turn on any world news program and your here the name of our city called out…
(Time) (CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa) — The Cedar River poured over its banks here Thursday, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 homes, causing a railroad bridge to collapse and leaving cars underwater on downtown streets. Officials estimated that 100 blocks were underwater in Cedar Rapids, where several days of preparation could not hold back the rain-swollen river.
(CNN) Water Ebbs in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Other Areas Evacuated…
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — The dark, filthy water that inundated the entire downtown of Iowa’s second-largest city was receding Saturday after forcing 24,000 people to flee, but those who remained were being urged to take draconian measures to avoid overwhelming the city’s only remaining drinking water source.
These are just two out of countless numbers of stories and reports of the serious degree of damage and loss happening in my home town. It has been estimated at this early stage that Cedar Rapids alone is looking at well over $1Billion in loss and damages. However, the naive, anti-community super-socials of this area have decided that an event which is known to be extremely over-priced and under-providing for the prices involved, The Barbecue Round- Up, should most certainly continue as planned. Typically this event is the last in a series that lasts just over a week and leads into the 4th of July festivities. It has been a staple of downtown Cedar Rapids for many years. The downtown that is basically gone now. But hey, lets waste money needed for clean up and rebuilding. Let’s just waste that on over-charged, less than wonderful grilled food and activities. And lets put the event in a non-commercial, residential community. One that has suffered from noise and pollution for over a week now as their neighborhood has been a staging ground for much of the relief efforts going on in this City…
(KCRG) The 21st Annual BBQ Roundup presented by Veridian Credit Union will take place as scheduled, June 26-29, 2008, giving the community an opportunity to come together in compassion and camaraderie. The South Kingston Parking Lot will serve as a temporary home for the festival as clean-up of the original site gets underway.
I’m thinking that putting such frivolous event on hold in order to clean up this disaster and help provide a home to over 20,000 displaced residents is in order here. Not the 21st Annual “take-everybody’s-money-and-hardly-give-them-anything-in-return-Round-up” What in the world has happened to common sense?
