Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 27, 1995 TAG: 9505300034
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Another milestone will be marked in September with the expansion of the local Junior League's after-school program at Hurt Park Elementary School.
The expansion, from one-day-a-week to five-day-a-week availability, is being made possible by a $10,000 national award from the Association of Junior Leagues International and BMW of North America and a $20,000 community development block grant from the city of Roanoke - all to the credit of the local Junior League.
The Hurt Park program, under the flag of Project Hope, serves some of the city's poorest and most vulnerable youngsters. By giving such kids a place to go after school while their parents are still at work, by offering them help with homework and wholesome activities under responsible adult supervision, Project Hope can help prevent crime, drug-and-alcohol abuse, premature sexual experimentation and teen pregnancy. Every community should be so lucky as to have a program like it.
Meantime, community leaders and schools ought to be devising ways to make organized, constructive after-school activities available to every child who doesn't have a parent or other adult at home when school gets out.
THE RISE in America of heavily armed, self-styled "citizens' militias" might be interpreted as implicit acknowledgment of a point sometimes made by gun-control advocates: The Second Amendment's right to bear arms refers not to individuals but to organized militias.
If so, further reflection by militia sponsors remains in order. The amendment speaks not merely of a militia but of "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State [our italics] ...."
by CNB