Multimedia Reporting (Bradford-Noland)

Over 100 students participated in the Alternative Breaks program this year, going to various cities in the United States to volunteer during their Spring Break or Winter Break. Those students that don’t have the funds or time to go to a different city, though, can volunteer for the Alternative Weekend Breaks program, which allows people to stay close to home.

“The program fits into the busy college schedule,” Alternative Weekend Breaks co-director Elizabeth Cattell said. “Some students just can’t commit to an entire week.”

The Alternative Breaks program started in 1995 with one Spring Break trip, and it has continued to grow since then. “It has gotten more popular,” Alternative Breaks public relations co-director Steve Nichols said. “Now there are five sites for Winter Break and up to 10 for Spring Break; we have a weekend program as well.”

Each month about five to six students in the Weekend Breaks program volunteer at a place close to Lawrence. Students involved in the program pay an initial fee of $10 and then pay $5 for every site that they go to afterwards.

This year the students have already been to three sites for the program: the Atchison House, the Meadowlark Hills Retirement Center and the Ronald McDonald House . The Atchison House in Lawrence is a group home for people with mental disabilities. The volunteers worked on cleaning up a 15-passenger bus for them, helping out workers that don’t have a lot of time. “I feel like we helped out a lot at the house because we cleaned the handicap van, helping out with something that would normally be overlooked,” Alternative Weekend Breaks co-director Rachel Glover said.

In October, students went to the Meadowlark Hills Retirement Center in Manhattan. Because October is a month where elderly residents don’t receive a lot of visitors, the students were able to visit with them and keep them company. “We don’t always do a big project where the impact is life-changing, but we try and do little things that matter in the end and help the workers,” Cattell said.

The Ronald McDonald House in Topeka helps children with serious illnesses, and the students helped out by raking leaves and cleaning some of the house. “We don’t normally have volunteers that can help with things outside the house,” Ronald McDonald House Manager Kristen Roth said. “Anyone that raked the leaves helped out a ton because we have tons of trees and not much time to rake them.”

The break is usually far enough out of town that the students carpool together on Friday night and then volunteer on that Saturday. “It’s nice to have that evening for everyone to get to know each other and to talk about what we’re going to be doing,” Cattell said.

That Friday night they try to sleep at the site where they will volunteer. They also discuss the social issues that they will help with, such as people with mental disabilities, health issues, homelessness and dealing with the elderly. They make a craft project, such as painted pumpkins, doorknob hangers or hand turkeys for the site as well. “The program really taught me about some of the different issues I didn’t know about, such as mental disabilities and homelessness,” Glover said. “In college, you forget to think about life outside of it; Alternative Breaks gives people the opportunity to think on their feet and look at things differently.”

Students in the Weekend Breaks program just have to apply to be accepted, and the program has yet to turn anyone away. Next semester, Cattell hopes to plan bigger events that will involve more people, such as End of the Streets week, a week that is dedicated to giving students opportunities for community service.

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Each year students apply to the School of Nursing at the University of Kansas and don’t get accepted. It’s not because they don’t work hard or have a good grade point average. It’s not because they don’t volunteer enough. It’s not even because they don’t have enough ambition. It’s because the school doesn’t have enough nursing faculty to teach the students.

“The lack of nursing faculty is a big area of shortage at the school; the average age of the nursing faculty is 50, and a lot of them are getting ready to retire,” Dr. Rita Clifford, associate dean for student affairs in the School of Nursing, said.

As the baby boomer generation grows older, there are more elderly people that need to be taken care of, which means more nurses need certification. The nursing faculty shortage affects the number of nurses because, without faculty, the nursing schools have to turn away incoming students.

“Nurses usually want to work in a job where they get paid more, and that’s usually not the case in a teaching position,” Clifford said.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), 40,000 applicants to the nursing school are turned away each year. The nursing schools cannot increase the number of nursing students because there aren’t enough appropriate clinical spots for people practicing as students.

“In the school, we need a lot of one on one time with our teachers when we’re working on our clinical rotations,” School of Nursing senior Erin Madsen said.
“There’s enough staff for our class, but there’s no way that we could have anymore people in the school without more staff.”

In the past five years, the number of applicants for the School of Nursing at KU has risen dramatically, according to Clifford. The reason for this is because the level of awareness about the profession and about the shortage has risen as well.

At the University, up to 500 people apply to the School of Nursing each year, and only 128 applicants get accepted. Although the required GPA to get into the school is only 2.5, the competition is so high that the average GPA of the students that are accepted is 3.7.

“It’s intimidating to apply to a school with such a low acceptance rate,” Sara Brandenburgh, a senior that is applying to the school, said.

This shortage affects, not only nursing students, but our healthcare, as a whole. As the number of sick people goes up, the number of nurses will stay the same, making it hard to accommodate those that need nursing care.

“All of the reports about healthcare research show that [the shortage] will continue to get worse; 1.2 million nurses will be needed by 2014,” Clifford said.

Advances in medical care are also creating situations that require a higher level of nursing care and more of it. With new technology, patients are kept alive when, under the same conditions, that wouldn’t have been possible 10-15 years ago. These patients also usually require consistent nursing care.

The low number of nurses started affecting the public schools as well. On the east and west coasts, the public schools are sharing nurses, with approximately 2,000 kids per nurse, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. In the midwest, this problem is not as severe yet. According to AACN, by the year 2015, all 50 states will experience a significant shortage.

“We could always use more nurses,” Sonja Gaumer, nurse facilitator for the Lawrence public schools, said. “It’s not always a matter of applicants with qualification, though; it’s sometimes just a matter of funds.”

According to AACN, many statewide initiatives are starting to address the shortage of nurses and nursing faculty. Some states have started encouraging current nurses to go back to school and teach future generations by providing faculty with scholarships and grants.

The KU Medical Center is starting to address the issue also. It participates in the Board of Regents programs, which give scholarships and federal grants to people that are planning on becoming nurse educators. They also have post master certificates, which allow people with either a master’s degree or a Ph.D. to take health educator courses and become stronger educators.

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As Halloween approaches, holiday enthusiasts begin to set up decorations, which means lots of black, lots of spider webs, and of course, lots of pumpkins.

Larry Schaake, owner of Schaake’s pumpkin patch, shares this same enthusiasm because, as you might guess, Halloween is his favorite holiday.

“I love Halloween because it’s part of our family’s livelihood,” Larry Schaake said.

Not only does the patch provide the family with money, it is something that they can all work on together. Each worker is related to the family in some way and is dressed in their own orange, Halloween gear. Even the young grandchildren are there each day, playing on their tricycles and wearing shirts that say “Boo.”

“We’re definitely all involved in some way, and on Halloween, we always have a big party with family and friends,” daughter Sheila Lynch said.

The pumpkin patch began 35 years ago as a 4-H project that Schaake’s kids started, but the farm, itself, has been around for much longer. The patch allows the family to work on growing and selling a crop together, which is something that is more enjoyable in the farming business.

“I like growing pumpkins because they are a fun crop to watch grow, and they create pretty vines,” Larry Schaake said.

Pumpkin farming is a tradition of the Schaake family, but the family actually gets most of their money from corn and soybean crops. As petroleum prices rise and droughts continue to kill crops, Larry Schaake continues to face more problems with farming each year.

“Energy is killing the farmer,” Larry Schaake said, “The weather is never just right either, and prices just keep going down.”

And he should know because he has been a farmer his whole life.

In fact, Larry Schaake has lived in Lawrence since he was born. His family describes him as loyal, honest, and hardworking. He’s the kind of guy who will go back to pay for an extra bag of feed after he’s already taken it home. He’s also the kind of guy who works hard for what he earns, even if he has to work in pain each day.

“I’m really proud of my dad because of how much he cares about everyone; he would do anything that anybody needed,” Lynch said.

The 64-year-old farmer lives on the exact same farm that he grew up on and raised his own kids on. When he was 14, his father died of lung cancer, and he began to run the farm with the help of his mother. Interested in law, he had not always dreamed of being a farmer, but it quickly became something that he was passionate about.

“I can’t imagine my dad without farming,” son Scott Schaake said, “I believe that he truly enjoys it.”

Larry Schaake was raised, just how he raised his own kids, in an atmosphere where everyone works together. He loves farming for many reasons, but mainly because it’s a good time to spend with his family. For example, his wife and all four of their children used to wake up in the summer at dawn to cut weeds out of the bean fields with a corn knife.

“We would always work together,” Lynch said, “At the time, I thought I was deprived from the things normal kids did, but looking back on it, I really appreciate what we had or have as a family.”

Although he works 80 to 90 hours a week, Schaake doesn’t seem to slow down. In the past three years, he has had two accidents, where his arm was mangled, he suffered severe chemical burns, and he even had to get part of his foot amputated. Even after all of that, he still continues to work as much as he did before.

“He enjoys his work too much,” wife Janet Schaake said, “If he stopped, it would be the end.”

Schaake’s four kids still help out on the farm during the Halloween season, especially after the accidents. With the help of his family, he doesn’t allow the pain to get to him.

“After the accidents my dad has been through, any person would have let it get the best of them, but he still works as much as he can, every day,” Lynch said.

When his wife and him eventually do have to stop farming, the family hopes to keep the farm, without letting bigger businesses, petroleum prices, or weather issues get in the way. Retiring, right now, is not an option though.

“Of course the accidents have slowed him down, but I don’t think he’ll ever retire; it’s not in his vocabulary,” Janet Schaake said.

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At the city council meeting last night, the five commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of changing the tax amendment for the city development code, allowing parks to be placed every quarter of a mile apart, instead of every half a mile. This allows for more parks to legally be developed in the era. The development and improvement of five parks received approval by the city council this year, including Greenbelt Park, Clinton Park, the Sesquicentennial Point Park, the Burroughs Creek Trail Park, and the Centennial Park’s new addition to the skate park.

“The new areas west of Iowa want new green spaces because all the areas east of Iowa have a park every quarter of a mile,” Mayor Mike Amyx said.

Alan Cowles, the president of the West Lawrence Neighborhood Association, worked towards getting approval for specifically Greenbelt Park. The first step was to get the commission to authorize a creation of bonds (that would be sold and pay interest) for the development of parks. As more residents became concerned about getting a green space, Cowles went back to city hall to encourage funding. The council used $870,000 from the bonds to give to the construction of Greenbelt.

“The residents are enthused about getting a new park because parks are quite popular,” Cowles said, “It’s unfortunate that we don’t have more parks out this way.”

Over the next couple of months, the construction of the new Greenbelt Park will begin in the West Lawrence Neighborhood. Planning for the project started in 2004, but recently, the West Lawrence Neighborhood Association made it a high priority because of the neighbors’ urgency to get a park in their area that is within walking distance.

“A lot of residents have talked about how they wished they could go to a green space with a playground or play area that was a little bit closer,” said Susan Chi, the chair of the parks committee for the West Lawrence Neighborhood Association.

The 40- acre park, east of Langston Hughes Elementary School and north of Bob Billings Parkway, is going to be a nature-trail park, according to Lawrence Parks and Maintenance Superintendent Mark Hecker. “There aren’t a lot of parks like this one,” Hecker said. “The other neighborhood parks in Lawrence have more playground equipment, shelters and restrooms.”

The plan for the construction of Greenbelt Park is to build in two phases, and Hecker estimates that it will take up to two years to be finished. It will contain a two-mile hiking trail with an outdoor classroom, primarily for the Langston Hughes Elementary School to use. The classroom will contain some sort of seating, such as benches. A Native Grass Area, planned to be in the park, will be helpful for students’ education as well. The park will also contain a large mowed area for fields, but they won’t be marked for specific sports.

Two-thirds of the trails are mowed throughout the area already, and people have started walking on them. According to Cowles, approximately 700 families will benefit from the park.

The Greenbelt Park will be a new addition to the other 53 neighborhood parks in Lawrence. The four other parks that received approval for funding will get money for additions and improvements, but they won’t be turned into new parks. Over the past ten years, the community asked for more green spaces in developing areas, so the city council will continue to help fund the Parks and Recreation Department because that’s what the developing community seems to want.

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In the United States, 200 to 300 hookah bars have opened since 2000, according to Smokeshop Magazine. Forty-five percent of colleges and universities are near one. In Lawrence, Aladdin’s Cafe used to be the closest thing to a hookah bar, but a new place called the Hookah House just opened on Wednesday, September 6 above Vermont Street Barbeque.

“The Hookah House is something that Lawrence needed,” Twenty-year-old Hookah House co-owner Hazem Chahine said, “A lot off people haven’t even experienced a hookah bar before.”

This new Lawrence bar is different than the others that you might see on Massachusetts Street because it accommodates to those that are a little bit more mellow. Instead of blasting the usual Kelly Clarkson song and having everyone bounce around from their Red Bull and vodka high, the Hookah House plays traditional Lebanese music and only sells small appetizers and flavored tobacco to smoke out of one of their hookahs.

The hookah is a Middle-Eastern water pipe used for smoking flavored tobacco, which has been used traditionally in that culture for the past 3,500 years. In the United States, though, smoking tobacco from a hookah has just recently become popular in the last decade. Because hookah smoking has become a new trend, many people around Lawrence go to support the new place and have made it a profitable business thus far.

Since the shop has been open, which has only been about two weeks, it has already received a lot of publicity from the news. Because of this, customers waited for up to 30 minutes to smoke out of the hookah in the first weekend. The shop also had hookahs for sale, ranging from $90-150, and they sold all 30 of them in that same week. “Because hookah smoking has become somewhat trendy, our customers are very diverse,” Hazem said, “It’s like a melting pot of people from different backgrounds.”

The Hookah House is directed more towards teens and young adults. Lots of students have begun smoking out of hookahs because it’s a healthier way to smoke tobacco. It’s not addictive and the smoke doesn’t hit your lungs as harshly. “I had never smoked out of a hookah before until last year,” Chase Weidemann, a senior at the University of Kansas, said, “Now, I come to the Hookah House about once a week; it’s something for me to do to relax and get together with my friends during the week.”

The Chahine family began working on the Hookah House a year ago. They subleased the loft above Vermont Street Barbeque and spent about $7,000 to fix it up. They put air- conditioning and lighting in and also redid the ceiling and added plumbing and cable. Their family from Lebanon sent over different cultural items to be put in the store as well. “Where I come from, smoking out of a hookah is a tradition and something you do to welcome someone into you’re home,” other co-owner Bassem Chahine said, “I’m glad we could bring that tradition to the Lawrence public.”

The family had to get approval from the local government to allow people to smoke inside their bar. Because the primary source of income from the shop is through tobacco, they were allowed to open up the place. Aladdin’s Cafe, a mediterranean food restaurant that allows people to smoke out of their hookahs outside, could never let their customers smoke inside because their main source of income from the restaurant is food.

Because the Hookah House is so different, the workers at Aladdin’s Cafe have noticed a difference in business since the Hookah House has opened. “More people have wanted to try the new place because it accommodates to specifically hookah smokers,” Mazm Eskangrani, son of the owner of Aladdin’s Cafe, said.

The profit that Aladdin’s Cafe makes off of the hookah smoking compared to the Hookah House is a lot less because they have to pay a fee to the local government for people to smoke out on their porch. Another reason that they make less of a profit is because their restaurant isn’t based around the hookah; they mainly make their money from the food that they serve.

The Hookah House makes most of its money by getting their tobacco in bulk. For a whole package of tobacco, it only costs them about $8. To smoke out of the hookah at the Hookah House, it costs $10, which is only about a tenth of a whole package, or you can buy your own tobacco, and they sell the whole package to customers for only 50 cents more ($8.50). They also make money from their Turkish Coffee and home-made hummus, which they sell to the Farmer’s Market too. In one week, the Hookah House makes a profit of about $4500.

“A lot of people have never really experienced a hookah before,” Bassem said, “So a lot of people come in to see what the trend is all about, which has really been great for business.”

Saturdays and Fridays, after about 5:00 pm, are the busiest times for both the Hookah House and Aladdin’s Cafe. The hookah smoking trend that just made its way to the United States in the past 10 years has really kept businesses like these thriving. “This year has been the busiest year for our hookahs,” Eskangrani said, “I think it’s because people want to know what hookah smoking is all about.”

The Hookah House hopes to get approval for a “Bring Your Own Beer” type policy so that people can bring alcohol to drink while they’re smoking out of the hookah. They also hope to have belly dancers come in on Friday nights so that customers can really experience something from the Lebanese culture. “Back home, everybody has a place to smoke a hookah,” Hazem said, “We just wanted to give the people of Lawrence that opportunity as well.”

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