Recently by Kenzie Cordt

Bill Scott knocks on Ruby's door as he had every Thursday for the last two years. After a few minutes, the frail 80-year-old woman slowly opens the door. Wearing her nightgown and slippers with her gray hair tightly pinned in curlers, she greets Bill with a stern look on her face as she leans on her walker for stability.

"You're late," Ruby said in a distraught voice, "I thought you had forgotten about me."

"I know, I'm so sorry Ruby," Bill replied, "I had a huge order to deliver to the hospital before this."

Ruby is one of nine Hy-Vee customers who get their groceries delivered to them weekly at the Drury Place at Alvamar Retirement Home.

Scott has been delivering groceries for Hy-Vee's grocery delivery service for two years. He said that he enjoys being able to bring people food who otherwise could not get to the store.
"I think that it's a great thing for the community," he said, "and I am glad that people take advantage of it."

Grocery delivery services are available through several different businesses in Lawrence. Both Hy-Vee and Checkers grocery stores offer the option of transporting food items to homes, as does the Schwan's Home Service Inc. food company. Although all three of the businesses offer the same service, they all have different qualifications and costs in order to receive the delivery.

Checkers grocery store has been doing home grocery delivery for eight years, but their service is not available to just anybody. Jim Lewis, owner of Checkers, said that they have a current list of thirty customers that they deliver groceries to, and do not add a person to that list until someone else is taken off.
"We would love to be able to provide this to everyone who needs it, but we just don't have the time," Lewis said.

Even though Checkers does have a limited number of customers that they deliver to, they still provide their service free of charge.

"I know that most people probably charge for delivery groceries, but I just can't," Lewis said, "I don't do it for the money."

Hy-Vee on the other hand has no guidelines as to who can or cannot be delivered to, but they do include a charge to all orders. Debbie Barnett, who packs up the items that people order at Hy-Vee every day, said that Hy-Vee does not have any regulations because they want to be able to help as many people as they can.

"Anybody can order groceries from us, Barnett said. "A majority of our customers are homebound and elderly," she said, "but we do have some customers that want their groceries delivered because they have a broken leg and can't drive or are expecting mothers or something."

Hy-Vee charges customers an additional $15 for all orders taken over the phone, and $20 extra for orders placed over the internet.

Schwan's Home Service food company also has no rules on who orders their product. Any person can make a purchase through their catalog. Schwan's does not charge a delivery fee to its customers; they just add the Douglas County tax rate of 6.3% to each order.

"Our services are available to any customer who wishes to purchase our product," said Delvin Smith, local Schwan's Home Service manager, "and our customers are not just the elderly, young people take advantage of the convenience, too."

Donna Ginther, Economics Professor at the University of Kansas, said that the United States is currently in a broad based recession. She said that of the areas being hit, only a few are spared.

"Almost every part of the world's economy is being affected," Ginther said. "Only a few areas are not being as hurt by this, one of which is grocery stores," she said. "People can't quit buying food, and as for home delivery services I think that most of the people that use it are elderly that live on fixed incomes and are therefore not affected by the recession."

All three home delivery providers said that they were surprised that the lowering economy has not affected their sales that greatly.

Lewis said that Checkers' grocery deliveries have not slowed down, even though the economy has. He contributes this to the fact that most of his customers are on fixed incomes. He said that even when the gas prices were up, his company did not enforce a delivery charge.   

"I was definitely losing more money on delivering when gas prices went up, but I couldn't seem to justify having to charge the customers when I never had in the past," Lewis said.

Although Hy-Vee's delivery business has stayed steady with the 10 to 15 customers per week, Barnett said that their delivery charges have in fact increased. When the economy began to go down, she said that Hy-Vee decided to raise their phone order delivery charge from $10 to $15 dollars and their internet order delivery charge from $15 to $20 in order to try to compensate for some losses that they were experiencing.

"Hy-Vee stayed strong during the rising gas prices and didn't up our charge then, but with as bad as the economy is right now we almost felt as though we didn't have a choice but to raise our prices," Barnett said.

Schwan's manager, Smith said that he was happy with the fact that his business has not been affected by the economy, and that their business had actually been increasing. However, Smith did say that when the gas prices began reaching record high numbers Schwan's did have to take some action. Although Smith said that the prices increase was only an extra $1 to $2 per order, he felt that he had no choice.

"Due to increasing gas prices we had to raise our prices ever so slightly, but we did send out letters to each customer letting them know that there would be a price increase and why it had to take place," Smith said.

Although Smith said that Schwan's business remained steady, some customers have in fact been cutting back.

 Kara Perry, Lawrence resident and Schwan's customer, said that the lowering economy has definitely affected her food delivery purchases. Her husband used to own a home-building company in the area but said he could no longer stay open due to the declining economy.

"Our family absolutely loves the food that the Schwan's company provides, but since we are having to cutting back on all of our expenses I don't see how I can justify continuing to buy frozen meals," Perry said, "although I will definitely miss the convenience."

Photos provided by: Rick Ginsberg

It is the bottom of the ninth inning. The home team is down one run and has two outs. The team's focus is not on who is up to bat, but they are more worried about the runner on second base, Rick Ginsberg. Although he is still an active 56-year-old, he had just realized something. He has not slid in over 30 years. He hears the smack of the bat, and immediately takes off. As he approaches third the base, the coach screams at him to "GOOOO HOME!" Thankfully, the team's batter had done it once again, and Ginsberg did not have to slide. His team had pulled off another victory.

Rick Ginsberg, Dean of the School of Education for the University of Kansas, is not your stereotypical dean. He works out 90 minutes per day, plays softball once a week and gets in a pick-up game of basketball with his kids whenever he can. He said that health is very important to him.

Out of all of Ginsberg's activities, he said that softball is definitely his favorite. His love for softball began at a young age, and played division three softball in college. He participates on a team that plays one night a week.

Dr. John Colombo, Director of Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies and
Professor in the Department of Psychology for the University of Kansas is one of Ginsberg's teammates. He said that he has played softball for many years, but with Rick for two years.

"Whenever I found out from another colleague that Dean Ginsberg was planning his move from Colorado State University to KU around his then current softball team's schedule, I knew we had to have him on our team," he said.

Colombo respects the fact that Rick always makes a point of fitting softball in to his busy schedule. He said that even if he will have to miss a game due to travels or other things, he would always let his team know in advance. He added that Ginsberg is a very good player, and the best outfielder they have.

Family is also a huge party of Rick's life. He said that he likes to spend as much time with his family as possible. Even on the nights that he has a softball game, his family attends.

Ricks' daughter, Alex Ginsberg age 11, agrees that her dad is very active, and says that he works out in the basement every night. She says likes to watch her dad play, sometimes.

"I kinda like to watch him play," she said, "But I mostly go for the cool park that's next to the ball field."

She says that he is enjoys being active so much, that sometimes it is hard to hold him back.

"In the winter we have to make him stay home so he doesn't go and play basketball," she said. "That's how he broke his nose...twice!" she added.

Lauri Ginsberg, Rick Ginsberg's wife and University of Kansas School of Education Professor, says that she enjoys working out with her husband on occasion. She also likes to get exercise as a family by taking walks or riding bikes together.  She said that although Rick is incredibly busy, he always makes time to stay in shape.

"Rick makes sure that he always gets his workouts in," Lauri said. "A lot of the time he has to skip our family dinner and I eat alone with the kids, just so that he can squeeze a workout in," she said.

Lauri works out every day as well, and says that staying healthy is a big part of the Ginsberg family. She said that she honestly does not know how Rick gets everything finished at the end of the day.

"It amazes me how many things he can have on his plate at one time, and still get them all done," she said. "Thank goodness he is an expert at multi-tasking," she said.

Noah Ginsberg, Rick's eight-year-old son and youngest of his two children, says he likes to play basketball with his dad.

"My dad plays basketball with me in the driveway sometimes, but he's pretty busy," he said, "but I have fun when we do."

Rick says that he has been physically active for his entire life. Even when he is on the road for work, he makes sure that wherever he is staying has some sort of workout equipment.

"I am a very athletic guy," he said, "and staying in shape is important to me."

Ginsberg says he has been very competitive is entire life. Even during his childhood in Queens, New York, where he grew up, he took contests very seriously.

Travel back in time 48 years to 1960. Location: New York. Goal: Hoppy-Taw champion. Ginsberg, then age eight was competing for New York's Central Park Hoppy-Taw championship.  Hoppy-Taw is a game that he compared to be somewhat like hopscotch. He said that you bounce a ball into a square, and then have to jump in that square to pick the ball up. He had breezed through the burrow competition and through the district competition as well. Both of those events had led him to Central Park, the final stop. By the end, the contest was neck and neck between him and another boy. Ginsberg received second place because the judges said he stepped on the line.

"The winning prize was a brand new bike, and I really wanted it." Ginsberg said, "What kid wouldn't?"

From business meetings to scoring game winning runs, this dean seems to do it all. He said that age is no concern to him.

"Getting older really stinks," he said, "but you don't have a choice so you might as well stay active and enjoy it."

 

 Money makes the world go 'round, and right now for the Indian Education Program in the Lawrence Public School District, the world is looking flat. Their lack of funding is narrowing down the programs that they are able to provide, and causing them much frustration along the way. They have had to cut out many cultural programs, such as making heritage crafts and helping pay for school supplies that the students cannot afford. The amount of students that they have outweighs their incoming money by 81 percent, making their funds insufficient.

 Indian Education is an important part of the education system for Unified School District 497.  The district's population is made up of five percent of Native American students, and within these 528 students, there are 150 different tribes. Their program is funded by two different grants: Title VII and the Johnson O'Malley program. The grant money from these two programs helps fund tutoring for the students, cultural programs and other activities.

The Johnson O'Malley Indian Education grant was established in 1934. This grant system was originally set up to where the school was given a set amount of money per year, per student. But due to a budget decrease from $24 million to $16.4 million in 1994, each school receiving this loan is now frozen at a certain number. This means that the school will only be given that certain amount regardless of how many students are actually attending during that year.

Because of lack of funds, USD 497 has had to cut down the programs that they are able to offer to their students. Insufficient funding limits the number of cultural programs that they can provide. Jennifer Attocknie, District Coordinator of Native American Student Services for the Lawrence Public School System said that this forces them to make their current culture programs to be very generic, whereas they would love to be able to do more specific things in order to reach more kids. "We can do things such as pow wows because they are inter tribal ceremonies, but other than that we are very limited," she said.

Attocknie said that there are numerous projects that she would start if they had the funding.

"The very first thing that I would do would be to start a summer day camp program," she said. "During this camp, I would love to take them on museum trips, do cultural programs, and also pay for their food and travel expenses," she added.

Attocknie said that their students have summer retention problems, and that that this camp would help keeps their brains going even when they are not at school.

Another one of her dreams would be to start a program that would offer evening activities for families.

"I think that this would be a great way to get both parents and students more involved. It would keep kids out of trouble and hopefully brings families closer together, all while learning more about their own culture."

 Virginia Thomas, President of the National Johnson O'Malley Association, said that the changes made in 1994 really damaged their program.

"In 1994, there were 47 school districts counted in one boundary that now contains over 72 school districts." she said. "This means that over 25 school districts are not getting the help that they need and deserve, just because they were not counted in 1994," she added.
 
 Locally, this hurt USD 497 immensely because they currently have 100 students above the frozen amount number.

 Through the Johnson O'Malley program, USD 497 is given $56.00 per kid per year. Attocknie said that this amount is not near enough.

"This small amount forces us to only offer the bare minimum of Indian Education to our students," she said. "It's very saddening." 
 
Kathy Johnson, Financial Division Director for the Lawrence Public School Systems, said that the conflict with the federal government and money is a regular back and forth battle.

"Every year Congress threatens to lessen the amount of money distributed through the Johnson O'Malley grant program, or even eliminating it all together. This is a constant struggle for us," she said.

 Johnson said that they must be creative with the money that they are given, and are not even sure from year to year what amount they will receive.  

The Lawrence Public School System provides $16.60 per month, or $199.20 per year to the Indian Education Program, but these funds are not used towards actual Indian Education.

When asked what those finances were used for, Attocknie joked, "Who knows, maybe to buy our coffee and paper?"

 Realistically, the Indian Education Program is given these funds to help pay for their yearly audit, which costs $199. Other than that financial help, Attocknie says that the school system also provides them with a building to work in, including free rent and utilities. 

Kay McCord, School of Education teacher at Haskell University, agrees that education for minorities is very important.

"I believe that schooling should not only prepare children for the real world, but that it should incorporate their heritage while doing so," she said. "I feel that minorities have a learning disadvantage, and that we should do something about it," she added.

Although the Johnson O'Malley program does not provide an incredible amount of money, Attocknie said that they are thankful for everything thing that they receive, and try to remain positive.

"No grants equals no programs," she said. "And we don't want that." 

  Show and tell was a time when little kids could bring their favorite toy or picture to school for all of their classmates to see. "Ohs" and "ahs" would fill the room while their object was passed around. Although show and tell ended for most after grade school, the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce has developed a way to not only allow businesses show off their stuff, but do it while helping the environment, too.
    The Grow Green Task Force was formed by the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce with the intention of helping make the Lawrence community a "greener" place, and improve its' carbon footprint.Their goal is to try and environmentally make a difference. The group started talking in late 2007, but did not start having meetings until 2008. Although the Grown Green Task Force is still in its infancy, they have big hopes for their group. As of right now, the task force consists of about 20 members, but will hopefully expand to other Chamber of Commerce members and local businesses.
    Adam Handshy, Project and Program Coordinator for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, said that they really want to make an impact on Lawrence's carbon footprint. When asked why they decided to begin this program, Handshy said, "Other cities are taking the green initiative, so we thought that we could, and should, too."
    The Lawrence Chamber of Commerce has been around for almost 130 years. They were established on December 12th, 1878 with the motto that, "the Chamber measures every project it is involved with against two standards: economic value and quality of life."  The Grow Green Task Force is an example of making an effort to improve the community.
    One of the Grown Green Task Force's first projects is to distribute grow green checklists to all Chamber members and businesses. These checklists consisted of 30 different ways in which each business could do their part. A few examples that were on the list were using permanent ware as oppose to disposable in break rooms, setting the temperature to 68 degrees when heating and 76 degrees when cooling, and eliminate unnecessary paper use. Checklists were dispersed via the Lawrence Journal World, and businesses that were wishing to participate were to cut out those lists, and keep track themselves. 
    Kara Perry, Custom Wood Products Showroom Consultant and Lawrence Chamber of Commerce business member says that her company wants to help join the efforts. "I think that it is great idea, and should have been started long ago," Perry said. Custom Wood Products has their Grow Green Task Force list posted on their main desk so that it is visible to all employees. They have already been checking off items such as creating clearly labeled recycling bins, and purchasing paper products made from 30% or more post-consumer waste.     "We are proud to not only be helping out the environment, but especially the Lawrence community in any way that we can," Perry said. "Our employees are really getting in to it, and the checklists create a fun way to show off our efforts."
    The Task Force is also hoping to push participants with an incentive. If the partaker completes at least 20 items on the checklist, they will be given recognition. As of right now, they are thinking about giving these people a Grow Green Task Force sticker to place beside the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce Member sticker that they already have displayed. They are hoping that this will help motivate businesses by wanting to be able to display to their customers that they are doing their part to better the Lawrence community. In an effort to try to make even more of a difference, the Grow Green Task Force is also offering this checklist to non-Chamber members. These businesses will be rewarded for completion as well. Participants are also encouraged to input any ideas to be added to the checklist that they feel would beneficial to the program.
    Task Force members said that they are excited to finally see this project moving, and can't wait to see the results. "My favorite part of the Grow Green Task Force has been the possibilities for the future and how we can educate the business community on the ways to be and what it means to be sustainable," said Beth Johnson, Vice President of Economic Development for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce.
    Currently, the Grow Green Task Force has no finances. The initiative start-up cash, which they said is a very small sum, is coming out of membership budget. So far, the Task Force has only had to pay to place an ad in the Lawrence Journal World. In the hopes that this group will expand, they will eventually get sponsorships to help cover the ongoing expenses.
    Although they are still in the beginning stages, the Task Force says that they are up for the challenge. "You have to start somewhere," Handshy said.