Letters on Meals on Wheels, WSU YMCA, Stallworth, Thompson

Meals on Wheels pays large benefits

President Trump’s budget chief, Mick Mulvaney, disparaged Community Development Block Grant programs such as Meals on Wheels, saying they “don’t show results.” I have seen first hand the results of such programs. One small thing my wife and I do is to deliver meals once a week to people in need of assistance through a Meals on Wheels program.

In many cases, important, relatively small budget programs such as Meals on Wheels pay large, intangible benefits. The people who deliver those meals may be the only person that recipient sees for the day. The volunteer may be asked to retrieve medications, take out the trash or just have a good laugh.

My wife and I don’t do a lot, but we look forward to that once a week therapy for us. The program we volunteer for is in a smaller town and operates mostly through donations and reimbursement from some of the recipients. In my opinion, that would not work well in many areas, and cutting off that small, minuscule part of the budget would devastate these programs.

Mulvaney went on to say about cutting off funding, “I think it’s one of the most compassionate things we can do.” As Army chief counsel Joseph Welch said to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1954 during McCarthy’s communist witch hunt: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Listen to WSU students

The following letter was submitted by Randy and Cathy Ellsworth, Robert Alley, Linda Bakken, Marcus Ballenger, Jeri A. Carroll, Orpha Duell, Dixie Petersen, Nancy Stubbs, John H. Wilson.

We support the Wichita State University students who oppose the proposed YMCA facility on the WSU campus. As former WSU faculty and staff (retired), we have become more and more concerned about how much students are being asked to pay in fees – and often how little input it seems they have in those assessments.

The university administration’s inability to convince the Student Government Association of the “great deal” of having a YMCA on campus that students would partially fund through a fee is telling. Maybe the benefits of such an arrangement have not been carefully explained. Or maybe they have been too quickly explained and with not enough specific detail to convince students of the project’s value.

Students are to be the primary clients of this service, and not having them on board as supporters of this proposal seems highly suspect.

Their input was requested, and they were asked to approve the fee proposal. They did not provide approval in the belief that, in the absence of such approval, the proposal would not go forward. The director of the Heskett Center was also terminated, which simply added fuel to a fire.

Continued discussion of this proposal is warranted, rather than have university administrators go forward quickly. Pushing forward on such a proposal in the absence of student support (indeed, active opposition) seems very shortsighted.

Stallworth’s big heart

I didn’t move to Wichita until 1978, and I didn’t know much about the city and even less about Shocker basketball. Once I moved to my current neighborhood off Oliver in 1984, the only time I paid attention to the Shockers was when I noticed the increase in traffic pouring in and out of Wichita State University.

That all changed when I sat next to a guy named Dave Stallworth at Boeing back in the 1990s. I knew who he was, of course. I grew up in New Jersey, and my brothers would watch him play when they’d catch a Knicks game in New York City a couple of times a year.

On breaks, I’d ask questions about the game, and he’d answer in that deep, calm voice of his. Eventually, I learned more about basketball than I ever thought I would. Those conversations came in handy when my son started playing biddy basketball and eventually at Brooks Middle School.

Stallworth lived a few blocks from me at that time and offered to give my son a few lessons, which he did. He left my 12-year-old with lessons on basketball and generosity he’ll never forget, along with an autographed basketball to boot.

Stallworth was big man with a big heart. He showed the world what class, hard work and kindness toward your neighbor are all about.

Will stand up for vets

As a Kansan who comes from a long family lineage of military service, I am passionate about veterans issues. Similarly, as a community mental health provider with experience working with Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan vets, I understand the importance of addressing our armed service members’ mental health in addition to their physical wounds.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and associated psychological issues are often a harsh reality for many women and men returning from combat, and it is absolutely essential that there are institutions in place to assist them with achieving optimum psychological health and re-assimilating into society as civilians so that they may pursue their own American Dream. We need to expand and deliver comprehensive behavioral health services that address psychological trauma and all its complications.

As a Marine and later as a civil rights attorney, James Thompson vowed to protect the liberty and constitutional freedoms of veterans both in Kansas and across our country. I am confident that if elected to represent District 4 in Congress, he will continue to deliver on that promise in Washington, D.C.

This story was originally published March 22, 2017 at 5:43 AM with the headline "Letters on Meals on Wheels, WSU YMCA, Stallworth, Thompson."