The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
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PUBLISHED: May 8, 2008
Volunteers still needed to help with Poppy Days
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The poppy is a memorial to all American soldiers who have paid the supreme sacrifice to ensure our American freedom.
The tradition began in the years following World War I. Veterans returning home remembered the wild poppies that lined the devastated battlefields of France and Flanders. The soldiers of all nations came to look upon the flower as a living symbol of their sacrifice. The red petals of the poppy symbolize the vast outpouring of blood of American soldiers on foreign soil.
Disabled veterans started making the poppy flower in veterans' hospitals and they continue to do so. Making the poppies benefits the veterans both financially and psychologically.
Our local American Legion, Post 322, has helped countless veterans at the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and veterans and their families in our community. Continuing to spread the poppy story will keep this program going.
Celebrate your freedom, wear a poppy, tell the poppy story and, above all, thank a veteran.
On May 15, 16 and 17, the three units of Saline American Legion Post 322 will offer poppies at the entrances of selected local businesses. Please support the program, accept a poppy and wear it proudly in honor of all our veterans.
We are still in need of volunteers who can donate a few hours to poppy days. Anyone interested should contact me at 429-5040.
Mary Hess
Chairwoman American Legion Auxiliary
Saline
We need the Healthy Michigan Fund restored
Most people don't realize that chronic diseases are the most common, costly and preventable forms of illness.
According to the Center for Disease Control, chronic diseases affect almost half of our population and consume 75 percent of our health care dollars. Given these sobering statistics, I am troubled that the Michigan Senate voted to cut the Healthy Michigan Fund, which serves as the main source for almost all state sponsored disease prevention programs, by almost 50 percent.
As a person with diabetes, whose kidney failure could have been prevented, I am passionate about restoring the Healthy Michigan Fund and maintaining state-funded diabetes and kidney disease prevention and management programs.
These programs are evidence-based and provide positive outcomes in communities and health care systems. Programs focus on diabetes prevention through lifestyle changes and provide self-management training to those with diabetes, which can reduce the complications of blindness, amputation, kidney disease/failure, heart attack and stroke.
In Michigan in 2006, the leading causes of kidney failure were diabetes (42 percent) and high blood pressure (29 percent). Healthy Michigan Fund programs target diabetes and high blood pressure management because kidney failure caused by diabetes and high blood pressure can be prevented or delayed.
If the Healthy Michigan Fund is not restored, these programs, along with many others, will be lost.
Chronic disease prevention is cost effective and a worthwhile use of state funds. We must convince our legislators to restore the Healthy Michigan Fund and maintain disease prevention and management programs.
I am going to contact my state representative and state senator and encourage them to restore the Healthy Michigan Fund and maintain diabetes and kidney disease programs. I hope you will do the same.
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