Christmas eve digest: time for giving

It's Christmas Eve, and we wish all of our readers a Merry Christmas. Reading around the papers today, we're moved by the story of the anonymous donor who gave $1 million to the families left homeless by a fire in a Burnsville apartment complex. This works out to each family getting $17,500; many of those displaced had little to begin with. We read:

A bleak holiday grew a bit brighter this morning for residents who returned to a fire-ravaged Burnsville apartment complex to receive their portions of a $1 million anonymous donation.

Each family from Building A, which was destroyed in Monday's blaze, will receive a check for $17,500, courtesy of the donor, whose only request was that the Burncliff Apartments residents would receive the gift in time for Christmas.

We are blessed to have this kind person living among us. There's a less dramatic story unfolding in Waseca, though the benefit to the community will persist for years. In A season of giving, the Waseca County News reports:

Paul and Sue Rosenau hope to touch as many people as possible with funds from their lottery winnings, but they didn’t expect the endowments to be Christmas gifts.

That’s just how it worked out, according to Sue Rosenau, because somebody had a better plan than they did.

Since the day in May when the couple won the largest Powerball jackpot in Minnesota history, that is how it has been, Paul Rosenau said. They took home nearly $60 million out of a $180.1 million jackpot and set out to fulfill the responsibility they believed came to them through those winnings. And all along the way, they felt someone was guiding them.

So, over the last two weeks, the Rosenaus were busy delivering news of local endowments.

The largest of their gifts was made to Grace Lutheran Church.

“It’s a substantial gift that will be utilized to meet people’s needs,” Associate Pastor Dan Doering said about the 11 different endowments made to the Rosenaus’ church home, the church that sustained them when they lost their granddaughter, Makayla, to Krabbes Disease five years ago.

The vast majority of the endowments will go to meet the needs of the community. That the endowments come at Christmas is to Doering so appropriate because it is the season in the church of God’s greatest gift.

Read the rest of the article for more of the story. A separate piece, Community groups benefit from Rosenau gifts, details the endowments:

Funds have been established at Grace Lutheran Church for Grace Garden, Habitat for Humanity, matching gifts, pastors’ discretionary endowment, staff development, worship endowment and youth endowment. Other funds in the planning stage include a fund to offset costs of medical crisis in Waseca and other communities; a scholarship fund for students pursuing a church vocation; and a disaster relief fund to offset recovery costs after a natural disaster. The church purchased the former Countryside Motors showroom building and parking lot and an additional lot with a gift of $270,000 from the Rosenaus. Future use of the building is still undecided.

Other local endowments have been made through the Waseca Area Foundation to Waseca area law enforcement, Waseca and Woodville Fire Departments, Waseca Parks and Trails, Waseca Public Schools, Waseca Medical Facility, Cally Jo Larson Fund, Barb Penny Fund and Farmamerica.

Waseca School District Superintendent John Rokke said a $500,000 endowment was made to the schools: $200,000 for k-12 technology upgrades; $100,000 for scholarships for students pursuing the medical field; $100,000 for scholarships for talented and gifted students who don’t otherwise qualify for scholarships; and $100,000 for the marching band program. The funds are not for the school budget.

Grace Garden is a day care center; all of these gifts are a wonderful acknowledgment of the comfort the Rosenaus received when their grand-daughter's illness shattered their own world:

They felt alone when Makayla was diagnosed with a disease they knew nothing about, Paul said, but the community supported them and now they want to help others in a similar crisis.

The Cally Jo Larson Fund and the Barb Penny Fund are administered by the Waseca Foundation. A small town of about 8500, Waseca has had its share of woe in recent years, and Grace Lutheran has played a strong role in healing the town's heartaches. What an incredible story.

In other issues, Agri-News editorializes in Midwest is the place for ag policy power with Vilsack:

With President-elect Barack Obama's selection of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as the next agriculture secretary, the epicenter of agricultural policy is right here in the Midwest.

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin leads the Senate ag committee and Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson holds the same job in the U.S. House. The threesome have a special opportunity to shape future agricultural policy and establish new directions that are badly needed. . . .

. . .Vilsack, 58, has a big job ahead.

With Peterson's and Harkin's help, he might be able to push through meaningful and lower subsidy payment limitations.

Vilsack will become only the second Iowan to be ag secretary in modern times, which is somewhat surprising because Iowa is the No. 1 agricultural state. Henry Wallace served President Franklin Roosevelt well in the trying days of the Great Depression.

Reform, greater USDA efficiency and stronger oversight will be on his plate.

We wish him well.

President-elect Barack Obama promised change during his successful campaign. Vilsack is in a strong position in that regards. He should get plenty of help from Peterson and Harkin, who have consistently been at the forefront of congressional ag policy debate.

The Washington Post explores what some of those changes might be in Targeting Obesity Alongside Hunger: Obama Administration May Look to Tie Food Assistance to Improved Nutrition:

For decades, the government has treated hunger and obesity as unrelated phenomena. But at a news conference last week in Chicago, Tom Vilsack, President-elect Barack Obama's  choice for agriculture secretary, said he would put "nutrition at the center of all food assistance programs," a signal that he will get involved next year when Congress moves to reauthorize nutrition programs that support school breakfasts and lunches as well as summer food for children.

"For a long time, we've looked at hunger and obesity separately," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the committee that will draft the legislation. "It's not a zero-sum game.". . .

. . .In the 2008 farm bill, Congress allocated $20 million for a pilot program to explore how to create incentives to purchase fruits, vegetables or other healthful foods in order to improve the diets of food stamp recipients and potentially reduce obesity. Several nonprofit groups and foundations are experimenting with similar incentives.. . .

Read the whole article at the Post. An article in the New York Times' Dining and Wine section takes a foodie approach to the issue in Is a New Food Policy on Obama’s List. It's the more pessimistic report of the two articles today in two of the nation's most important papers.

With the recount of Minnesota's U.S. Senate race still unsettled, it might seem too early to start thinking about candidates for Minnesota's state house and senate. A keen-eyed farmer friend spotted a GOP filing for the state senate seat now held by Sharon Ropes. Good luck to frequent LTE writer, WELS pastor and RPM official Paul Ibisch.

When we last heard from him, Ibisch was urging that people donate to area food shelves by participating in the CP's Holiday Train's stop in LaCrescent. We completely agree with him on that.

The Winona Daily News reports in  Food giveaway helps feed hungry:

Approximately 350 families were helped through Compassion Winona, a food giveaway of more than 32,000 pounds of food by Community Bible Church.

The food came courtesy of Feed the Hungry, a Christian relief organization based in South Bend, Ind.
The church received the food Dec. 4 and gave it away Sunday through Tuesday to anyone in need.

The Rev. Craig Hensel, a pastor at Community Bible Church, said they plan on following up with some families in the future to see how they’re doing.

Hensel said many of the recipients of the food were single moms or elderly.

“Most people really are really trying to make it,” Hensel said. . . .

WDN columnist Jerome Christenson writes in It’s not really about the children:

. . . It’s said the Lord leaves nothing to chance, so there’s good reason the angels were sent to a bunch of tired farmhands stuck working the night shift.

It was poor, tired shepherds who needed to hear the Christmas promise: “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy.”

That’s a message for adults.

Adults who, unlike children, know too much and at the same time know too little. Disillusioned, weary, fearful of the encroaching darkness. Buffeted by depression, recession, unemployment; by life, death and loss.

“Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy.”

The Christmas story is truly a story for adults, with meaning for any of us who have been turned away in time of need, faced the slammed door, found ourselves humbled. Alone. Afraid.

In every adult life, there is a time when the Christmas story is, painfully, our story. The story of those moments when we need, desperately, to hear glad tidings and remember what then happened next. For there, with the cobwebs and filth, amid the stink of manure and nighttime chill, was brought forth the glory of the ages with the eternal promise of “on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” . . .

Merry Christmas, everyone, from the Bluestem Prairie.