Cares Coalition meets for first time
Two dozen representatives of agencies and organizations that focus on helping people in Dickinson County met for the first meeting of the Cares Coalition on Wednesday.
The coalition is an off-shoot of the former Abilene Cares organization, which met from 2016 through 2019. The meeting’s moderator, Tom Schwartz, gave an overview of Abilene Cares, which started as an initiative of the Abilene School District.
“The administrators in the district at that time got together with Denise Guy who was the superintendent and we just said, ‘We can’t get all of the problems solved that we’re seeing in the families. We need help, the school district can’t do this ourselves,’” said Schwartz, who was an administrator at the time. “Denise and the rest of us put together the idea of, ‘Why don’t we bring in different agencies from the community and the county and see if we can combine all of our knowledge and work together on trying to solve those problems that we saw.’”
For the new group, the city’s name, Abilene, was dropped from the name because organizers will include agencies from all of Dickinson County.
Agencies and organizations represented at Wednesday’s meeting came from several sectors including health and medical, law enforcement, child and family services, local government, schools and religious.
“We all do a great job in our agencies but a lot of times we know what our agency can do, but we’re not sure what else is going on,” Schwartz said. “That’s what this coalition is about, where we can share how we can help each other solve some of these issues of families and children in our community.”
He asked each representative to introduce themselves, and without being verbose, tell the group what their agency’s primary concerns were.
Loretta Jasper from Neighbor to Neighbor and Shelly Alderson, mental health liaison with the Abilene School District wrote them down.
“We are stating a lot of the same things,” said Taylor Haws, community-based services coordinator with Central Kansas Mental Health Center.
Concerns included issues within their agencies, such as funding and shortages, while others addressed what the participants are trying help community members with, such as housing, mental illness, healthcare, feeding families and breaking cycles.
The Rev. Joseph J. Barlau with Faith Lutheran Church made the observation that all the issues fit neatly into one of four categories — physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual.
In reviewing the concerns and touching on how the Cares Coalition can begin tackling some of the hardest issues facing the community several participants pointed out that one of the difficulties is breaking down how they approach people in need.
“This has come up before in previous Community Health Needs Assessment — we’ve identified a lot of issues, and we will likely identify a lot of ways we think they need to be fixed,” said Brenda Weaver, deputy director of health at Dickinson County Health Department. “But we have different tools in our toolbox than these families with needs. We need to be sensitive to what they need to help them do better, not what we think they need.”
“There was somebody that once said, ‘If it’s supposed to be for us and it doesn’t include us, then it’s not about us,” said Elizabeth Weese, executive director of the Community Foundation of Dickinson County.
She also spoke briefly about the Herington Hearts organization, which is successful in addressing some of the generational issues by using mentors. That group takes a holistic approach to working with entire families to help them break the cycle of poverty. Success doesn’t come overnight however.
The group discussed the issues they encounter and started touching on how to begin tackling them. Following the meeting Schwartz said he was pleased with the turn out and the enthusiasm the group has for working together.
“I’m excited because we had so many agencies show up today the first time that we met so I’m excited about the opportunities we have to try to do something positive,” he said.
The group will begin meeting regularly at 3 p.m. on the last Tuesday of each month.
Kansas Caring Hands: Neighbor to Neighbor
County commission proclaims Sept. 9 Seniors Day
By Kathy Hageman, Dickinson County Public Information Coordinator, Sept 7 2022
The Dickinson County Commission proclaimed Friday, Sept. 9 as Seniors Day, a time to celebrate senior citizens. The Dickinson County Senior Network has planned an event at the Abilene Community Center which will spotlight the various programs and resources available to seniors in the county. Standing from left to right are Senior Day Committee members Sister Loretta Jasper of Neighbor to Neighbor — Abilene, and Teresa Weishaar from the Hope Center; seated are Dickinson County Commissioners Craig Chamberlin, left, and Ron Roller. Commissioner Lynn Peterson was not in attendance.
Neighbor to Neighbor provides meal help to community
Aug 4, 2022, Abilene Reflector
In March 2020, COVID-19 had officially landed in the U.S., and states and cities issued a mandatory quarantine amidst all the panic and unrest. This left many families struggling to keep a job or find a job as businesses were shutting down due to the pandemic. Even if someone was deemed an ‘essential’ worker, many people still found themselves forced to quarantine and stay at home.
All of this left the community unsettled. How were people going to feed and support their families? How were they going to battle through hard times without any clear direction? Enter the Neighbor To Neighbor program. Located on Eighth street, the foundation was started in 2017, and during the peak of the Coronavirus pandemic the foundation provided relief in Abilene
“We intend to focus upon meeting needs of women with or without children there is no social economic limit, meeting needs that are not being met for women in Abilene and Dickinson County,” said Sister Loretta Jasper.
Jasper co-founded the Neighbor To Neighbor foundation to help women in need. Many single mothers in the world are struggling and could require some help. Neighbor To Neighbor plans to provide as much support as they can to any type of women who feel they need it.
“We are a drop-in center, we do not house people, we do a fair amount of redirecting their concerns, if a person of the household is not able to cover their rent or utilities or if they are short on food, we provide that,” Jasper said.
Neighbor To Neighbor was an unsung hero while the pandemic was at its highest.
“Before the pandemic, we had a fair amount of programs going on,” Jasper said. “Which involved moms and kids coming in together, we have two playrooms upstairs that we had not been able to use due to the threat of COVID, so we had not done that yet and our biggest focus during 2020 was providing meals for people, and we provided them curbside. As of today on the curbside, we have probably delivered 89,000 meals since the shutdown in addition to the fact that we have two cupboards out on the porch that people can help themselves to and we have people knock on our doors that need meals. That became the dominant focus during the peak of the pandemic, since that time, what used to be prepare and serve meals every day is now preparing meals twice a week for three days at a time.”
Abilene Animal Hospital and Neighbor to Neighbor Abilene partner to provide pet food pantry
Updated
Last week, a pet food pantry appeared on the porch of the Neighbor to Neighbor Abilene house. The pantry is filled by Abilene Animal Hospital and donations from community members and local businesses.
Diana Pedersen, office manager at the animal hospital, and Dr. Lisa Tokach, veterinarian at Abilene Animal Hospital, are leading this project. Pedersen said Tokach and her believed there is a need for a pet food pantry in the community. The main problem they had when working out the details, though, was where to place it. They could not place it in front of the animal hospital due to limited outside space. After Tokach spoke with Sister Loretta Jasper, director of Neighbor to Neighbor Abilene, about the pantry, the two decided Neighbor to Neighbor was a good place for it. Jasper said locating the pantry at the Neighbor to Neighbor also allows people in need to pick up food in the comfort of the non-profit.
After four weeks of preparation, Tokach and Pederson placed a cabinet and filled it with the first items of the pantry last week.
“We cannot keep it stocked. I go over about every day,” Pedersen said.
“It’s great because people tend to feed their animals before they feed themselves,” Jasper said.
Midwest Greyhound Supply, Pioneer Farm and Ranch Supply, Inc. and Lumber House have partnered with the animal hospital to provide products from time to time for the pantry, said Pedersen. The businesses give the hospital food taken off the shelves, damaged food products and expired foods that have not yet gone rotten. The animal hospital also received a donation of 20 bags of food from Hill’s Science Diet, which is the food brand the hospital sells. The donation is the beginning of what is expected to be multiple donations from the pet food company. Other pet food companies will allow the hospital to donate damaged products to the pantry instead of having the hospital return them. Jasper said she has seen a few members of the community donating to the pantry.
Pederson said the community can donate by dropping off items at the animal hospital or at Neighbor to Neighbor. Jasper said she would prefer people who want to drop off donations at Neighbor to Neighbor to leave donations on the black cart by the south door of the building. She also asked people not to donate opened wet food products.
“I think partnerships are just absolutely spectacular. Just the fact that somebody has an idea, they bring it to us, it works and we do it,” Jasper said.