Local agencies give updates at February Community Services meeting

By Randa Wagner -

Eigh­teen area agen­cies attended the Feb­ru­ary Com­mu­nity Ser­vices meet­ing, held Feb. 25 in the Mor­row COunty Hospital’s Assem­bly room.

Janet Berardi, RideS­o­lu­tions Sr. Out­reach Coor­di­na­tor from the Mid-Ohio Regional Plan­ning Com­mis­sion, gave a pre­sen­ta­tion on Ride Solu­tions, a com­muter ser­vice that pro­vides trans­porta­tion to and from the work­place. She explained the pro­gram coor­di­nates car and van pool­ing by match­ing up peo­ple in a data­base with other rid­ers in sim­i­lar areas. RideS­o­lu­tions ser­vices are pro­vided at no charge to com­muters trav­el­ing to work­sites within the 11-county ser­vice area. Inter­ested per­sons can call 1–888-742‑7433 or fill out a form on the web­site www.morpc.ord/ridesolutions.

Mor­row County Hos­pi­tal Pub­lic Rela­tions Man­ager Lois Peo­ples reported Dr. Tejas Lod­hawala, spe­cial­iz­ing in Hema­tol­ogy and Oncol­ogy, is com­ing to Mor­row County Hos­pi­tal and is accept­ing new patients. He will be at the Med­ical Spe­cialty Cen­ter West location.

The hospital’s Tuesday/Thursday Aqua Strength class at the Car­di­nal Cen­ter was so well received, Peo­ples said, a Monday/Wednesday class has been arranged. This is a six week/12 ses­sion pro­gram requir­ing pre-registration and there is a cost.

Hos­pi­tal vol­un­teers will be hav­ing a Book Fair March 28 from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Assem­bly Room A at the hos­pi­tal. A por­tion of the pro­ceeds will ben­e­fit patient care.

On Sat­ur­day, Feb. 23, the hos­pi­tal per­formed 414 $25 blood pro­files. The pro­file includes a bat­tery of 27 tests, with a thy­roid pro­file avail­able for an addi­tional $25. The next date for the blood pro­files is March 16, 2013 in Assem­bly Room A (use ‘Receiv­ing’ entrance). You must fast 8–10 hours before the pro­file. Med­ica­tions can be taken with a mod­er­ate amount of water.

Mor­row County Recorder Dixie Shin­aberry said Mar­ket­ing Mor­row is in the process of start­ing the new Mor­row County Visitor’s Guide for 2014.

Kylee Smith with the Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment office announced she had book­lets on Fair Hous­ing for Mor­row County avail­able to any office that would like to keep a stack to pass out to the public.

Bob Fore­man of Ohio Heart­land Com­mu­nity Action, along with his assis­tant Liz Feliciano-Deeter, said March is the final month for the Win­ter Cri­sis Pro­gram. The Com­mu­nity Ser­vices pro­gram address­ing per­sonal needs is going well, he said, and thanked for the Kiwa­nis for donat­ing to that program.

Bev Rosich, with Ohio Dis­trict 5 Area Agency on Aging, passed out a pam­phlet to explain ser­vices offered by the agency. Amy Rose, also with Area Agency on Aging, works with the R.S.V.P. Vol­un­teer pro­gram. We’re always recruit­ing vol­un­teer sta­tions and indi­vid­u­als age 55 and over are wel­come. She said the pro­gram most recently signed on with the Tomor­row Cen­ter to offer tutor­ing services.

Deb­bie Ruth from Seniors on Cen­ter had a mass mail­ing in Jan­u­ary to inquire about addi­tional seniors in the county who could use their ser­vices with meals, trans­porta­tion and other needs.

Chris White from Ben­ning­ton Glen Nurs­ing and Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­ter said the facil­ity is host­ing the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion Sup­port Group, which meets the sec­ond Wednes­day of each month at 12 p.m. Respite is avail­able for the patient dur­ing the group ses­sion. For more infor­ma­tion on the group or to reg­is­ter, con­tact Chris White at 419–253-0144.

Dave Matos, with Hos­pice of Mor­row County, said 20 per­cent of their Hos­pice patients are vet­er­ans, and Hos­pice was approached by the Vet­er­ans Office a cou­ple of years ago to honor vet­er­ans while they are alive.

“Many vet­er­ans are being hon­ored at funer­als and memo­r­ial ser­vices, but we present them with a plaque and pin them, and we’re respon­si­ble for try­ing to pin all of Mor­row County’s 3,500 vet­er­ans,” Matos said. “We’ve only pinned 300, so if you know of any vet­eran who would like to be hon­ored, it’s a free ser­vice, we give them a plaque with their name and mil­i­tary branch. They can be pinned in their home or in nurs­ing homes, let us know (419–946-9822).”

Hos­pice is spon­sor­ing a Night Out with the Vet­er­ans Thurs­day, April 4 at 6 p.m. at Hos­pice of Mor­row County on South Street. Vet­er­ans will be hon­ored at the cer­e­mony, there will be Vet­eran speak­ers and light refresh­ments will be served.

The Hearts for Hos­pice auc­tion that is typ­i­cally held on March will be held in May due to other com­mu­nity events tak­ing place in March.

Chris Vasquez from the Vet­er­ans Office said their office has been very busy, and trans­porta­tion needs have increased. The sched­ules have been full for a week. The office is also look­ing into obtain­ing another pas­sen­ger vehi­cle, as a cou­ple of the cur­rent vehi­cles need replaced.

Mary Dam­ico from Helpline of Mor­row and Delaware Coun­ties said they have recently expanded to Union County. She passed out a book­let detail­ing the ser­vices Helpline pro­vides to the com­mu­nity, includ­ing pre­ven­tion and men­tal health pro­grams. Helpline has a data­base that helps link callers to the pro­grams they need. They oper­ate a crisis/suicide hot­line and there is a sui­cide pre­ven­tion coali­tion in Mor­row County.

Shilo Gall, Vol­un­teer Coor­di­na­tor for Helpline, spoke about their pre­ven­tion pro­grams. A Stew­ards of Chil­dren com­mu­nity train­ing pro­gram designed to pre­vent child sex abuse and tar­geted for pro­fes­sion­als, par­ents, grand­par­ents and any­one fre­quently around chil­dren. The next ses­sion is March 6 at the Com­mu­nity Ser­vices Build­ing meet­ing room. Stew­ards of Chil­dren is a pro­gram that incor­po­rates all of the fun­da­men­tal mechan­ics nec­es­sary in cre­at­ing orga­ni­za­tional poli­cies and pro­ce­dures that keep chil­dren safe.

Christina Sander­son, Ser­vice and Sup­port Admin­is­tra­tor for Mor­row DD accom­pa­nied Deb Lev­er­ing from the Board of Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties, who spoke about the Self-Advocates and their suc­cess in inte­grat­ing into the community.

“We’re doing a lot of train­ing with our indi­vid­u­als to become bet­ter self advo­cates and speak for them­selves,” Lev­er­ing said. “Mem­bers of Project STIR – Steps Toward Inde­pen­dence and Respon­si­bil­ity – have been going out, speak­ing to dif­fer­ent schools. A group will be doing a pre­sen­ta­tion at the Lenten lun­cheon at Trin­ity United Methodist Church.”

Don Wake of Job and Fam­ily Ser­vices reported the Sum­mer Youth Pro­gram will be held again this year.

“Young peo­ple can come to your place and assist you with any tasks that you have,” Wake told the admin­is­tra­tors present. “If you are able to pay them, you can be reim­bursed. Sev­eral crews will be out, includ­ing a road crew, start­ing May 15 for 6 – 8 weeks.” Inter­ested agen­cies or office can con­tact Teresa Ship­man, Sundie Brown or Don Wake at JFS. The youths range in age from 15 – 21 years.

Colton Traxler with the Vis­it­ing Nurse Asso­ci­a­tion explained they are a home health agency — the largest not-for-profit, community-based home health­care orga­ni­za­tion in Ohio.

In 2012 they focused on reduc­ing the num­ber of re-hospitalizations. They are still work­ing to keep those num­bers down and also look­ing closer at med­ica­tions. Visit http://www.vnaohio.org for a list of avail­able ser­vices and news.

Kristi But­ler with Turn­ing Point talked about the upcom­ing ben­e­fit 5K Run com­ing June 22, 2013. They wel­come spon­sors for the run.

Kelly Hand, Pub­lic Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer with the Mor­row County Health Depart­ment, said the health depart­ment will be seek­ing accred­i­ta­tion in the com­ing years so, as part of that, they are look­ing for part­ners to work with them to do a com­mu­nity needs assess­ment. So far the project is in the plan­ning stages but Hand stressed if any agency is inter­ested in part­ner­ing with the health depart­ment, please con­tact Health Com­mis­sioner Angie Smith at ext. 308.

Begin­ning March 4, the health depart­ment lobby hours will be open through lunch. To bet­ter serve the com­mu­nity, both win­dows will be open all day from 7:15 a.m. – 5 p.m.

The House­hold Haz­ardous Waste and Trash Bash date is April 27 from 9 a.m. – to 1 p.m. This coin­cides with the DEA Drug Take Back. New this year is tele­vi­sion recy­cling (there is a fee).

Susie Sex­ton with the Tomor­row Cen­ter in Edi­son gave a brief expla­na­tion of what the edu­ca­tion cen­ter is; a con­ver­sion com­mu­nity school, accept­ing stu­dents from third through twelfth grades. Stu­dents grad­u­ate with a real diploma from the Ohio Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, and the Tomor­row Cen­ter adheres to the same rules and laws other schools adhere to. The school received a large grant two years ago, she said, afford­ing them ser­vices they didn’t have pre­vi­ously. The cen­ter works with 18 school dis­tricts from all over Ohio, includ­ing Mar­ion, Craw­ford, Mor­row, Delaware, Rich­land, and Franklin coun­ties. Sex­ton said they cur­rently have about 100 stu­dents and invited any­one inter­ested to take a tour, and wel­come com­mu­nity collaboration.

A tutor­ing pro­gram was imple­mented to help stu­dents with their read­ing and math skills, where vol­un­teers come in and work with an indi­vid­ual. More vol­un­teers are needed.

The Tomor­row Cen­ter is now enrolling for fall. Stu­dent trans­porta­tion is not pro­vided but Sex­ton works with the par­ent schools to arrange trans­porta­tion. Sex­ton said one of the most fre­quent ques­tions she is asked is, “What kind of kids do you take?” Stu­dents who do not fit well in a con­ven­tional learn­ing envi­ron­ment are often good can­di­dates, and refer­rals are welcome.

The Tomor­row Cen­ter will be hold­ing their sec­ond prom April 26. Sex­ton said the first prom was held last year and went very well.

OSU Extenstion’s Dana Brown of the Fam­ily and Con­sumer Sci­ence Pro­gram announced a “Mom and Me Intro­duc­tion to Sewing” com­ing up March 14 and 18 for any child 8 yrs old in the third grade and up inter­ested in join­ing 4-H. Reg­is­tra­tion must be made by March 8.

Two food preser­va­tion classes will be com­ing up this Spring, Brown said. On May 8 a there will be a class on basic can­ning and on May 22, a class on freez­ing and dry­ing, both at the exten­sion office. She will also hold a Food Preser­va­tion pro­gram at Perry Cook Library on June 4.

The exten­sion office also tests pres­sure can­ner gauges – just bring in your can­ner lid.

The next Com­mu­nity Ser­vices meet­ing will be held Mon­day March 25, 2013.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Mar 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.