Drug, tobacco and alcohol-free

[AUG. 15, 2000]  Helping Youth in a Positive Environment (HYPE) – a Lincoln Junior High organization that promotes abstinence from the use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs – had a sit-in by the Logan County Fairgrounds on Monday.

Lincoln Junior High and Lincoln Community High School students were asked to stop by and sign a pledge sheet to remain drug and alcohol-free for the 2000-01 school year. Ninety students made the pledge, including two Lincoln High School football players who dropped by to make their pledge during a break in practice. Students who signed the pledge were given a T-shirt donated by Lincoln’s City Council.

The HYPE organization was established in cooperation with the Logan Mason Mental Health Department three years ago. Christy Simpson, the department’s prevention specialist, is the group’s organizer.

Thirteen-year-old Bo Wright, a member of HYPE, said, "I joined the group because it was fun and because I get to help out a lot."

HYPE does community service activities throughout Lincoln. It has worked with the Habitat for Humanity Project, helping to build homes for people in need of affordable housing. Members have led food drives for Lincoln’s food pantry, and they have participated in the adopt-a-grandparent program at St. Clara’s Manor, a long-term care center. They also perform prevention theatre puppet shows, according to Simpson.

Lincoln Community High School has a similar program called Snowball. They also do projects for the community. Both groups are open to all students, and individuals may join at any time. There are 25 students in HYPE and 30 in the Snowball program.

Sarah Koehne, 14, a Lincoln Community High School student, said, "I joined the group because it was alcohol-free and because it did community service projects like helping to do work at the former Odd Fellows Day Care Center (site). I like helping people."

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According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the use of alcohol or other drugs at an early age is an indicator of future alcohol or drug problems. The report says that people who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin at 21.

Data from a National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence publication reports that 80 percent of high school seniors have used alcohol. In comparison, 65 percent have smoked cigarettes, 50 percent have used marijuana and 10 percent have used cocaine. The use of alcohol and other drugs is associated with the leading causes of death and injury (e.g., motor-vehicle crashes, homicides and suicides) among teenagers and young adults. Junior/middle and senior high school students drink 35 percent of all wine coolers sold in the United States; they also consume 1.1 billion cans of beer.

Teenagers whose parents talk to them regularly about the dangers of drugs are 42 percent less likely to use drugs than those whose parents don’t, yet only one in four teens reports having these conversations, according to a Partnership for a Drug-Free America release.

The HYPE group is financially sponsored by local businesses.

[Kym Ammons-Scott]

[AUG. 14, 2000]  At a meeting Friday, the finance committee of the Logan County Board heard requests from three area organizations for a share of the funds from the new tax levy for senior citizen services. The Oasis Senior Center, the Central Illinois Economic Development Corporation (CIEDC) and the Rural Health Partnership asked for funding totaling more than $150,000.

Since only approximately $67,500 will be realized from the tax levy this year, the finance committee must prioritize the requests and decide how much funding to recommend the County Board grant to each organization. The .025 tax levy was approved at a March 21 referendum.

Judy Donath, executive director of Oasis, asked the committee to consider giving the organization a total of $80,956 – $29,826 for general expenses of maintaining the center, such as utilities, upkeep and insurance; $20,130 for programs and services; and $31,000 for a new 15-passenger van. The programs and services include hiring a part-time secretary/bookkeeper and initiating new programs, a grandparents-raising-grandchildren support group, trained volunteers to visit shut-ins, and Senior Olympics.

Donath said the Oasis group, which at present has no tax-supported funding, has had to dedicate most of its time to fund raising to support itself. Much of the funding has been generated from bingo games at the Recreation Center, staffed by the same group of volunteers, she said, and the volunteers are getting tired of staffing these games.

"We would like to move forward to better serve senior citizens of Logan County," she told the board.

Donath also noted that the Oasis van is not used to take seniors to gambling casinos. "Tri-State Tours brings a bus to the Oasis to take seniors to Paradice," she said. "The casino pays the bus company. The $5 the seniors pay is a fund-raiser and stays at Oasis."

Jane Poertner, executive director of CIEDC, and Mary Elston, deputy director of Senior Services, asked for a total of $45,000 – $15,000 each for three programs: senior nutrition, transportation and adult day care.

The organization reported a deficit of $14,909 in its senior nutrition program, which provides both home-delivered meals and meals at congregate dining sites. Home-delivered meals go to Lincoln, Atlanta, Lawndale, Mount Pulaski, Chestnut, Beason, Emden, San Jose, Latham, New Holland and Middletown. Congregate dining sites serve Lincoln, Mount Pulaski, Emden, Beason and Latham, with Beason and Latham receiving meals only one day a week and the other sites five.

Elston said the senior nutrition program served 42,815 meals last year in Logan county, almost 30,000 of which were home delivered to "the most frail and needy senior citizens."

She told the committee CIEDC has a $17,962 deficit in the transportation program, which provides seniors rides to hospitals, nursing homes, medical appointments, congregate dining sites, Oasis, beauty and barber shops, banks, Wal-Mart and employment-related activities. She said 81 percent of the transportation services goes to seniors over the age of 70.

The adult day-care program, Elston said, has a deficit of $27,482. Ten clients are enrolled, with four more referrals pending. Poertner said if the day-care program, which is supported by state payments, private payments and co-payments, had 24 participants it would be able to pay for itself.

County Board Chairman Darrell Deverman asked Poertner if she could prioritize the needs of her organization, but she said she would prefer not to choose between programs. "I would not want to see you starve all three programs," she told the committee.

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Board member Dick Hurley noted that CIEDC serves seniors in six counties, and asked what part of the budget serves Logan County. Poertner said the figures given the finance committee were for Logan County only. She said 90 percent of the transportation furnished by CIEDC goes to Logan and Mason counties, and 80 percent of the nutrition services go to Logan County.

Board member Roger Bock asked if Oasis and CIEDC could work out an arrangement to share a van. Poertner said she had been in negotiation with Oasis, but said her facility uses the van during the day and Oasis would only be able to use it evenings and weekends. Vans for CIEDC are purchased with grants from the Illinois Department of Transportation.

Dayle Eldredge of the Rural Health Partnership asked for $25,000 to help offset the operating expenses of the Rural Health Van, a mobile unit which serves rural communities in the county. She said the request was "a possible one-time grant. We hope over the next three years to establish an endowment fund to allow us to be totally self-sufficient. We don’t anticipate asking for funds year after year," she said.

The mobile unit performs approximately 750 functions per month, with 59 to 69 percent of its patients over age 65. Expenses this year were $145,000 and revenue only $13,000, she told the committee. The Rural Health Van is a new program, never attempted in the United States before, and there were no precedents to help determine how much revenue it would generate, Eldredge said.

Committee members raised several questions, such as determining eligibility for the funding and establishing priorities which best meet the criteria stated in the referendum. Several members suggested that all three organizations be funded at some level.

Rodney White, finance committee chairman,  explained that the county will probably levy only 75 percent of the tax this year. "The reason we looked at not assessing the maximum rate is to keep the funding level steady. Farmland assessment is going to start turning down. If assessed valuation goes down, taxes collected will also go down."

Finance committee member Clifford Sullivan pointed out another reason for assessing only 75 percent of the tax. "If other organizations request funds in the future, we wouldn’t have any dollars to fund them. We would not want to cut funding levels for existing organizations to fund new ones."

If other Logan County organizations do wish to make requests, the finance committee will hear them at two meetings next week, one Wednesday starting at 8 a.m. and another Thursday starting at 1 p.m. The committee will make a recommendation to the full County Board, which will make the final funding decisions and has the authority to change the finance committee’s recommendations, Sullivan said.

"We would like to fund all three organizations, and we’d love to fund them at 100 percent of what they ask," Sullivan told the Lincoln Daily News. "But if you’ve only got a five-pound bag, you can’t put 10 pounds in it."

[Joan Crabb]