May, 20012

Blog Gone Wild


    For some reason, my blog program has decided to take on a life of its own.  So, you may find some pictures floating around which were meant to be in this blog, but got separated from it.  Sadly, FREF has just asked me to present my blog making techniques at the Assembly in May.  I hope I can find the gremlin before then.


Scholarship Committee
    Those of you who attended the April meeting had an opportunity to see Tayler Liles, from Palmetto High School, one of our MCREA Scholarship winners this year.  She also won the FREF Scholarship which means she will receive more money from them in her next years in college if she keeps up her grades and stays in education.  Her mother, who is a guidance counselor at Lincoln Middle School,  was able to attend with Tayler. Julia Forkgen will be presenting Tayler's scholarship certificate at the Palmetto H.S. Awards ceremony.
 Our other scholarship recipient, Jacob Kargauer from Braden River High School, will attend our May meeting.  Since I worked with his mother to get him there, I invited her too.  I saw Jacob's picture in the newspaper for winning the Democratic Women's Club Scholarship as well.  He will need lots of help because his father in ill, and his mother, with the help of Jacob, is the bread-winner of the family which includes another son.  Terrence McDonald will present Jacob's certificate at the Braden River Awards ceremony.
    The Scholarship Committee brought a new scholarship presentation plan to the MCREA Board.  While all the details have not been worked out, the plan of distribution of scholarships will follow more closely the FREA method of presentation.  Since most students receive funds in their first year of college, money gets tighter later on in the junior and senior years. The committee felt that we could encourage students to stay with education as a goal with some extra funding.  So, beginning next year, we plan to offer two $500 scholarships to high school seniors, but we will encourage them to apply later for a scholarship from MCREA for $500 or $1000 more to help them in those "crunch" years.  Being able to follow through on this plan, however, depends on our ability to raise enough money to keep the enterprise afloat.  That means getting donations from our members as we always have, with perhaps a renewed effort to build up a scholarship fund.  This year we raised a bit over $3000, but we kept $1000 of that in our treasury to help us along in offering later funding to students in education programs.

FELT
     Feeding Empty Little Tummies still needs food.  This will be the last month of packing those backpacks for children to take home on the weekends.  Now we have to hope that some other community agencies will pick up on the needs of these kids to help them through the summer months.
  Jane Evers thanks us for our support and especially for all the great books which she was able to send home with each child at Christmas and will send on the last backpack day.  But, she would love to have some more books in the fall to begin again.  We have been the biggest source of books, so we need to keep up the good work.  She still needs food of course.  If everyone would just throw something in his or her shopping basket at the supermarket, it adds up fast.  I will see that the items get to Jane.  Think small packages of cereal , pudding, soup, crackers, etc.  All should be non-perishable and small enough so that they will not tip a little kid over backward.

Membership
   You may pay your membership dues to FREA and MCREA at our next meeting.  Remember, that probably FREA dues will go up in June, so it will save you money to pay now.  Dues are $50.  Those members who became lifetime members before that program ended pay $20 which are the local dues.

May Meeting
    We will meet on 11:30, May 17, at Renaissance on 9th.  Since this will be our last meeting until September, we hope you will make a big effort to get there.  We have no planned program except for socializing (which we are very good at), games, and an ice cream social.  I think that means we will have a make- your- own sundae bar.  Reservations should be made with your caller, but should you not hear from that person, call Mary Ann Jensen at 756-7603 before Sunday, May 13, to make one.


See you there,
Ellen