St. Mary’s Health is proud to host its 5th annual “Spring in to Feed the Hungry” food drive to benefit the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry. Donations will be accepted Tuesday, April 9th through Thursday, April 11th.

The public is invited to join St. Mary’s employees in contributing to this food drive. Visitors can drop-off non-perishable food items or monetary donations at the entrance of the Center for Advanced Medicine, located on St. Mary’s main campus in Evansville. Valets with the Courtesy Services department will come to your vehicle to take the donations. Drop off times are from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day.

This food drive is part of the Feinstein Challenge, a national competition in which one million dollars will be divided proportionately to agencies across the country, based on the amount of food and cash donations each organization receives during the months of March and April.

Over the last four years:

* St. Mary’s has collected about 4,450 pounds of food and nearly $2,900.

* Combined with the Feinstein Challenge, a total of 5,573 pounds of food and $4,028 has been donated to St. Vincent de Paul.

In 2012, the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry served an average of about 1,100 households – or 2,770 people – per month.

Last year marked the 200th Anniversary for the City of Evansville. This year the Evansville Fire Department is proudly celebrating 125 years of service to the community and its citizens. EFD is celebrating their anniversary by “serving” some young citizens in a different way, with lunch that is.

On Wednesday March 27th, EFD will provide and serve lunch to the Boys & Girls Club of Evansville (BGC), located at 700 Bellemeade Avenue. Since this is Spring Break and the kids are out of school, the Boys & Girls Club is providing additional fellowship and activities for “their kids” during this time. Providing a nutritious lunch was just an obvious choice.

Lunch will be served at 2 pm by Firefighters at the BGC on Bellemeade. EFD and BGC staff will provide interviews if requested.

MEDIA: This is not an open invitation for kids to come eat. This has been coordinated with the BGC for about 150 of their kids.

We hope to see you there.

Questions? Dan Grimm, 436-4428 or Richard Johnson, BGC, 425-2311

Ford Center
Thursday, March 28, 2013
2-3 p.m.
Disney On Ice presents Worlds of Fantasy brings to life a racecar event like no other in Evansville. Lightning McQueen from Cars is in need of some strong competition and that’s where Dr. Reuben Cohen, chairman of pediatric department and medical director of pediatric intensive care unit from Deaconess Riley Children’s Services has volunteered. He will be driving Mickey & Minnie Mouse’s cherry red roadster so his car needs have been set on the ice. The celebrity driver will be racing for Disney On Ice tickets to be given to the children in attendance. Over fifty children from Deaconess Riley Children’s Services will be his fans cheering Dr. Cohen across the finish line.
The grand finale takes place when Mickey & Minnie Mouse meet the children and winning drivers with a photo opportunity. Celebrity drivers race; charities win; and all in attendance will have a magical experience.

Disney On Ice presents Worlds of Fantasy offers a unique way to give back to the community with a charity racecar event. Disney On Ice skates in Evansville’s Ford Center through Saturday with five performances remaining.

Contacts: Lisa Finch, Disney On Ice Publicist, (317) 710-6664, finchandfinch@sbcglobal.net

Sara Gallegos, Deaconess Health System, (812) 450-7357, Sara.Gallegos@deaconess.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Today the Indiana Supreme Court decided a legal challenge to the constitutionality of Indiana’s choice scholarships law, finding the school vouchers law is constitutional. By a 5-0 decision in the case of Meredith et al v. Pence et al, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court and ruled that House Enrolled Act 1003 of 2011 (Public Law 92) does not violate the Indiana Constitution.

As lawyer for state government, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller’s Office defended the choice scholarships statute from the plaintiffs’ legal challenge. Zoeller today issued this statement:

“The Indiana Supreme Court found that the Legislature, in creating a voluntary program to broaden educational alternatives for Hoosier children, followed the Indiana Constitution by leaving the decision whether and where to use a scholarship to qualifying students and their families. My office defended the statute that the people’s elected representatives in the Legislature passed; and now that the question is decided, families can make informed decisions about using vouchers,” Zoeller said.

In its 21-page unanimous decision authored by Chief Justice Brent Dickson, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled: “We hold that the Indiana school voucher program, the Choice Scholarship Program, is within the legislature’s power under Article 8, Section 1, and that the enacted program does not violate either Section 4 or Section 6 of Article 1 of the Indiana Constitution. We affirm the grant of summary judgment to the defendants.”

The Indiana Supreme Court heard the appeal directly, bypassing the Indiana Court of Appeals, after Marion County Superior Court Judge Michael Keele on January 13, 2012, ruled in favor of the State and found the statute constitutional, and the plaintiffs appealed. Indiana Solicitor General Thomas M. Fisher argued the State’s in the Indiana Supreme Court on November 21, and the Supreme Court has had the decision under advisement until ruling unanimously today in favor of the State.

NOTE: The Indiana Supreme Court’s decision today in Meredith et al v. Pence et al is attached.

Indiana.Supreme.Court.ruling.Meredith.

Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke delivered his second annual State of the City speech to members of the Evansville Noon Rotary Club today at Casino Aztar Conference Center. The Mayor highlighted the accomplishments of the current city administration during his first year in office, gave a status report on new and continuing initiatives and shared his vision for the future of the City of Evansville.

“Last year at this time, our city was celebrating its 200th birthday, and it was clear that our city was poised for action,” said Mayor Winnecke. “Friends, I stand before you today with pride to report that the state of our city is robust and ready for the next 200 years.”

Mayor Winnecke used the opportunity to launch a new social media focus through the new official City of Evansville Twitter handle @EvansvilleINGov. The purpose of @EvansvilleINGov is to provide accurate, time sensitive information about Evansville city government directly to the public.

The Mayor also invites the public like his Facebook page “Lloyd Winnecke” and subscribe to the “Mayor Winnecke” YouTube channel to view video clips of news events hosted by the Mayor.

Mayor Winnecke’s 2013 State of the City Speech‏

By: Thomas Sowell

The decision of the government in Cyprus to simply take money out of people’s bank accounts there sent shock waves around the world. People far removed from that small island nation had to wonder: “Can this happen here?”

The economic repercussions of having people feel that their money is not safe in banks can be catastrophic. Banks are not just warehouses where money can be stored. They are crucial institutions for gathering individually modest amounts of money from millions of people and transferring that money to strangers whom those people would not directly entrust it to.

Multi-billion dollar corporations, whose economies of scale can bring down the prices of goods and services — thereby raising our standard of living — are seldom financed by a few billionaires.

Far more often they are financed by millions of people, who have neither the specific knowledge nor the economic expertise to risk their savings by investing directly in those enterprises. Banks are crucial intermediaries, which provide the financial expertise without which these transfers of money are too risky.

There are poor nations with rich natural resources, which are not developed because they lack either the sophisticated financial institutions necessary to make these key transfers of money or because their legal or political systems are too unreliable for people to put their money into these financial intermediaries.

Whether in Cyprus or in other countries, politicians tend to think in short run terms, if only because elections are held in the short run. Therefore, there is always a temptation to do reckless and short-sighted things to get over some current problem, even if that creates far worse problems in the long run.

Seizing money that people put in the bank would be a classic example of such short-sighted policies.
After thousands of American banks failed during the Great Depression of the 1930s, there were people who would never put their money in a bank again, even after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was created, to have the federal government guarantee individual bank accounts when the bank itself failed.

For years after the Great Depression, stories appeared in the press from time to time about some older person who died and was found to have substantial sums of money stored under a mattress or in some other hiding place, because they never trusted banks again.

After going back and forth, the government of Cyprus ultimately decided, under international pressure, to go ahead with its plan to raid people’s bank accounts. But could similar policies be imposed in other countries, including the United States?

One of the big differences between the United States and Cyprus is that the U.S. government can simply print more money to get out of a financial crisis. But Cyprus cannot print more euros, which are controlled by international institutions.

Does that mean that Americans’ money is safe in banks? Yes and no.

The U.S. government is very unlikely to just seize money wholesale from people’s bank accounts, as is being done in Cyprus. But does that mean that your life savings are safe?

No. There are more sophisticated ways for governments to take what you have put aside for yourself and use it for whatever the politicians feel like using it for. If they do it slowly but steadily, they can take a big chunk of what you have sacrificed for years to save, before you are even aware, much less alarmed.

That is in fact already happening. When officials of the Federal Reserve System speak in vague and lofty terms about “quantitative easing,” what they are talking about is creating more money out of thin air, as the Federal Reserve is authorized to do — and has been doing in recent years, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a month.

When the federal government spends far beyond the tax revenues it has, it gets the extra money by selling bonds. The Federal Reserve has become the biggest buyer of these bonds, since it costs them nothing to create more money.

This new money buys just as much as the money you sacrificed to save for years. More money in circulation, without a corresponding increase in output, means rising prices. Although the numbers in your bank book may remain the same, part of the purchasing power of your money is transferred to the government. Is that really different from what Cyprus has done?

Source: RCP

Prada – Prada is a black beauty who was left behind when her family moved away. She is three years old, and very shy. She lived primarily as an inside cat in her previous life, but spent a lot of time outside as well after her family abandoned her. Even though she may not be as expensive as the real Prada, she is well worth her $30 adoption fee! This includes her up-to-date vaccines, nationally-registered microchip, spay surgery, and a bag of food.