Farewell

There was hardly a dry eye at the Doctor’s Hospital Day Care Center on Friday as hospital employees, their children, day-care employees and others gathered for a goodbye party.
The day care, which has been in operation since the 1960s, is closing May 4.
Mary Caldarera was at the celebration. Her son, Bill Davidson, was the first child to attend the day care. Bill is 40 years old now.
Jennifer Clark was there with her 2 ½-year-old daughter Katelyn, who attends the center. Jennifer’s mother, Dawn Mrozek, was a hospital employee and Jennifer went to the day care.
Crystal James, who has worked at the hospital for 14 years, was there with her daughter Nenah, who has been going to the day care since she was 6 months old.
And the one thing everybody had to say about the day care is that it was like one big family. And it certainly will be missed.
Before the event ended, there already were plans in the making for a reunion next year.
Read more about the day care and what it means to so many people in my column Wednesday.

Law Day

This year’s Law Day theme is “Liberty Under Law: Empowering Youth, Assuring Democracy.”
The Law Day luncheon will be held at noon Wednesday at the Petroleum Club, with Mayor Cedric Glover serving as the guest speaker.
Even though May 1 is officially the designated date for the nationwide celebration of Law Day, the Shreveport Bar Association holds several activities related to the event before and after that date.
Some of their activities include: Volunteers of America LightHouse Program; essay contest; attorney volunteer outreach; voter registration; March of Dimes Walk America; and the Liberty Bell award, which will be given out on Wednesday.

Lower drinking age?

George Will wrote a column in today’s paper about lowering the drinking age in order to better manage risks associated with drinking.
Will wrote that John McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont and professor of history, has a theory that a way to lower the incidence of illness, mayhem and death from alcohol abuse by young people is to lower the drinking age.
He says the drinking age of 21 has moved drinking to settings away from parental instruction and supervision.
Ann Lombardino of Bossier City agrees with McCardell.
She is from Scotland and said the legal drinking age there is 18.
She says it would save a lot of lives if the drinking age were lowered.
Does anyone else agree?

Program for cancer patients

Lisa Clark, American Cancer Society Health Initiatives representative, says the Cancer Care Coordinator Program allows an opportunity to work with churches that are already working with cancer patients.
She said there are 19 area churches participating in the program. An informational meeting will be held at noon April 25 at Broadmoor United Methodist Church, 3715 Youree Drive.
“If you have cancer, our services are for you,” Clark said.

March for Meals update

Mary Alice Rountree, executive director of Caddo Council On Aging, e-mailed to tell me they have raised almost $60,000 toward their $80,000 goal in the March for Meals fundraiser. And she said they are still getting a few more checks.
"We now have 27 volunteers stations with over 200 volunteers involved," she said. "We feel very blessed."

Be on alert at service stations

Joyce Harvey, of Shreveport, is observant every time she pulls into a service station.
“Always, day or night, I check my surroundings before I get out of the car,” Harvey said.
That’s good practice, especially since one of the service stations Harvey uses, the Valero station at Baird Road and Bert Kouns, is the one where two carjackings recently occurred.

Spirit not shattered

A door to one of the offices at Praise Temple was kicked in when the church was vandalized over the weekend.

Bishop Larry Brandon gave me a quick tour of Praise Temple Full Gospel Baptist Cathedral and what I saw was unbelievable: doors that had been kicked in, broken windows, damaged computers, a broken antique mirror and a large poster that had been ripped from its stand and destroyed.
It appeared as if the vandals had gone from office to office destroying whatever they came across.
But that’s nothing compared to what Brandon found when he was called to the church Saturday afternoon.
"It looked like a tornado had come through," Brandon said. He said books and pictures were thrown out into the parking lot and items once in order in the offices were thrown all around.

Brandon said if the church hadn't been cleaned by Sunday, services would have still been held.
"We can have church anywhere," Brandon said, "even in the parking lot."