STEWART STREET ELEMENTARY
THANKS SUPPORTERS

A note of gratitude from the Stewart Street Elementary School Family.
The administrators, staff, and students of Stewart Street Elementary School would like to thank all of our parents, volunteers, mentors, business and faith-based partners, as well as our district and community leaders for their outpouring of support, contributions, donations and prayers throughout the past school year.
Through your support we were able to reach our goal of creating a culture aimed at achieving academic excellence. We are extremely excited to announce that our school was successful in earning a letter grade of “A” for the 2007-2008 school year. Way to go, Mustangs!
Again, thank you for helping us to help our kids. We look forward to your continued support in the upcoming school year.
Stewart Street Elementary
School: “Where Children
and Learning Come First!”

VOTE TO REOPEN
GADSDEN HOSPITAL
CRITICAL TO FAMILIES

You may have known someone like the hard-working family man who never missed a day’s work. He went to church every Sunday morning and spent time with his kids, helping them with school projects and homework and coaching their sports teams. One afternoon, as he was returning to his desk after lunch, the man felt a shooting pain in his right arm. He suddenly felt nauseous and began sweating profusely. Co-workers became concerned. They dialed 911 just as he collapsed to the floor.
While the emergency responders frantically worked to “bring back” the man, they exchanged hushed words of frustration. If this man lived just one county over, he would be less than 10 minutes away from the nearest hospital emergency room. The odds would be in his favor that he would survive this heart attack and return to work and church and family.
This is a risk that people in our county face every day. When Gadsden Community Hospital closed three years ago, our community lost critical 24-hour emergency care. Now, if a life-threatening emergency strikes, help is a 45-minute ambulance ride away. That could be 40 minutes too long if a family member is having a heart attack or stroke.
On August 26, our community will have the opportunity to vote on a half-cent sales tax to reopen the hospital. With so many families struggling to make ends meet in these difficult economic times, it’s an important decision that will take careful consideration.
Access to quality health care is key to the health and vitality of any community. Here in Gadsden County nearly one in five residents lives on a monthly income of $816 or less. And the incidence of infant mortality is nearly twice that of the state as a whole.
Reopening the hospital would give our families access to 24-hour emergency care, diagnostic and rehabilitation services and a clinic where specialty physicians. That will mean that our families, friends and neighbors will be able to get care right here in our community. And it will create up to 72 new jobs with good salaries.
There is no question that there is great power in prayer. But God also has given each of us, individually, power; the power to set old prejudices aside and be part of a greater community, the power to let our voices be heard when solutions are within our reach. This is one of those junctures in time where a tremendous obstacle can be overcome—if we speak with one voice and extend the same concern to our neighbors that we have for our families’—and our own—well-being.
If we don’t vote now to reopen the hospital, it may remain closed forever. The Urgent Care Center may also be forced to close, leaving our community without access to local emergency care.
A half-cent tax is a small price to pay to protect our families if a life-threatening emergency strikes. It’s our insurance that when a medical crisis arises, we will be just minutes from the nearest hospital and a team of health care professionals who not only work, but live in our community.
Gadsden County’s health care crisis is not just a crisis of the poor. Money means nothing as the clock ticks down on the “Golden Hour,” when most lives are saved.
Make your voice heard. Go to the polls on August 26 and vote as if your life depended on it, because it very well might.
Reverend John Battles
Citizens Hospital
Committee and pastor of
New St. Peter’s Apostolic
Church of Quincy