THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 22, 1995 TAG: 9506210180
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 147 lines
The Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast is building its own office and many other facilities to serve the entire council, including Suffolk, and would like to ask your community for the following in-kind donations for its new ``A Place for Girls:''
1. Construction Clean-up - Five or six adults needed each Saturday for half a day from June to December. Value $200. Sign up for one week or one month.
2. Trailer for construction office (June to December)
3. Portable toilets for construction site (June to December)
4. Donate or solicit donations of materials and equipment needed for the building, from area vendors. Some examples: two large refrigerators, 24 burner stoves, three microwaves, office furniture and equipment, all building materials and fixtures in any quantity, and 386, 486 or Pentium computers and components, peripherals.
5. Donate building skills (a day, a week or a month)
6. Unskilled, willing workers, any amount of time
Please send information to Pat McKinney, Girl Scouts of Colonial Coast, 4190 S. Plaza Trail, Virginia Beach, Va. 23452, or call 1-800-77-SCOUT.
Girl Scouts of Franklin-
Southampton County
and Colonial Coast Council VA: Not a `sacred cow'
The June 5 editorial (The Virginian-Pilot) ``VA needs reform, too,'' attacking the VA system as a ``sacred cow,'' requires comment. Information seems to have been used selectively to support a pre-conceived opinion.
It is unconscionable to ask men and women to risk their lives for their country and then turn our backs on them, denying medical care they need if they return home sick or injured. This issue has to do with ``honoring a sacred contract,'' not slaughtering a ``sacred cow.''
The editorial did not mention that the VA medical centers' overall occupancy rate is 75 percent, compared to a private sector occupancy rate of 65 percent. Nor was there mention of chronic underfunding, Byzantine eligibility rules, inability of the VA to retain third-party payments or bureaucratic inertia.
There are other facts bearing on the problem of adequate care for disabled veterans which seem to have been ignored in calling for some sort of ``drastic remedies.'' The following are VA health care realities:
VA care is severely restricted by convoluted eligibility criteria based on veteran status, income and degree of disability.
Only veterans with service-connected disabilities, low income (means-tested) veterans with non-service-connected conditions and others (WWI veterans, former prisoners of war, and veterans exposed to Agent Orange, ionizing radiation and toxic substances during the Gulf War) can receive care, and then only at certain levels based on eligibility status.
Ten national veterans' service organizations representing nine million veterans want comprehensive VA reform now. VA cannot survive and meet its congressionally mandated responsibilities to veterans if it cannot keep pace with today's health care revolution.
The private sector would not want to enroll the typical VA patient who is often older, indigent, disabled or chronically ill. VA is the only practical option for most veterans who currently use the system. VA also provides services unmatched and largely unavailable in the private sector that meet the special needs of veterans: spinal cord injury medicine, blind rehabilitation, advanced rehabilitation, prosthetics, post traumatic stress disorder treatment, extended mental health and long term care programs.
Studies have shown VA medical centers provide more cost-effective care than comparable private sector health care facilities. Without VA, millions of veterans would be forced to rely on Medicare and Medicaid at substantially greater federal and state expense.
VA hospitals exceed the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organization's quality standards, the same standards that apply to private health care facilities. VA medical centers are affiliated with 126 medical schools and have access to the finest clinicians and researchers in the nation.
Joseph Reeves Jr.
Suffolk
Past Commander
Department of Virginia
Disabled American Veterans An explanation, please
Picture this: 1971 - the first year of total integration in Ahoskie, N.C. I was in the eighth grade and being bused to another school. Children pushed me, spit at me and hated me because I was white.
At age 13, I would come home many days crying and asking my parents to explain why this was happening.
My father, Lee Lipsitz, would tell me this is how blacks had been treated in years past. He gave me great advice, ``Kill people with kindness'' and they will eventually become your friends. He should know this to be true because his ancestors had experienced the worst kind of hatred, the Holocaust.
I took his advice and, in time, blacks and whites trusted one another and we all seemed to be better. I graduated in 1975 and went on to UNC and received my degree to teach. In 1981, I came back to fulfill my dream of teaching in Hertford County and making a difference with ALL children. And this is happening!
This was not the case last Tuesday night when the Hertford Country Board of Supervisors sat before us with our fate in its hands. It had been given a task, one which seemed to be so simple: giving an extension of a contract to our superintendent, Jane Burke. Mrs. Burke has been in this county for 15 years and, as all can see, has accomplished more than most of us will in a lifetime. Being named ``Principal of the Year'' in the state of North Carolina and lobbying for and bringing back to Hertford County the innovative program, C.H.I.P.S., are just two of her accomplishments.
Yet when all of us came back into the board room to hear the verdict, and I do not use this word lightly, what we saw and heard brought back all of my feelings from 1971. Hatred filled the eyes of a few while the silent majority witnessed the verbal execution of our superintendent. And now we ask why.
Why has this blatant act of racism happened? Have we not gone back 25 years with this decision? I commend Audrey Williams and Chet Hill for standing up for what is right, not white or black. And once again I ask why.
The board owes all an explanation, especially the innocent children in Hertford County. How do you explain this act of hatred to our children? They have just witnessed and read about the horrible bombing in Oklahoma City. This, too, was seeded with hate.
Please, I'm asking the board to let all of us know why. We deserve to know because we are teachers, parents and taxpayers.
As for Mrs. Burke: I can only hope for your true happiness and peace. You truly deserve all good things. You will be missed, and our children will suffer greatly. And I thought we were all here for the children.
Julie Lipsitz Shields
North Street
Ahoskie Thanks for DECA boost
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff at The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star for the excellent newspaper coverage of the Nansemond River High School DECA club this year.
We are very proud of all of the club's accomplishments. We appreciate the time Shirley Brinkley spent on the excellent articles promoting the club's accomplishments.
The DECA members have been extremely busy, and their hard work and dedication took us to the top this school year. We have enjoyed working with the entire staff at the newspaper this entire school year.
We salute the staff members. They showed their job professionalism with the DECA club. The positive reinforcement they have given the club will be a treasured memory for each student and their families. Again, thank you for a job well done.
S. Michele Duncan
and J.B. Varney
DECA co-advisers
Joshua L. Kirk
DECA president
Nansemond River High School
Suffolk by CNB