Letters to the editor on volunteers, values and Riverfront Stadium

Volunteers

Right now, millions of Americans face the devastation of Alzheimer’s, including 55,000 Kansans and their caregivers. At the Alzheimer’s Association, our mission-driven volunteers are working relentlessly to help advance world-class research and ensure access to gold-standard care and support.

In honor of National Volunteer Week (April 18-24), I want to personally thank the volunteers across Kansas who have stepped up to be community educators, advocates, support group leaders, clinical trial participants, fundraisers and event attendees — all who are raising awareness of Alzheimer’s Association free-of-charge programs, basic disease information and resources for all Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers.

We rely on these dedicated volunteers to achieve our vision of a world without Alzheimer’s and all other dementia and we cannot succeed without them.

As Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Thank you to all Alzheimer’s Association volunteers!

Values

After reading the “Transgender Ban” article in the Eagle yesterday, it has become obvious that our core values as a country have truly ran off of the track. Not only are we now subservient to organizations such as the NCAA but we are now being threatened to comply with values contrary to our beliefs or else economic sanctions will be weaponized to bring us into the fold.

The bill passed by the Kansas Legislature (SB 55) should be applauded in that it keeps a level playing field (only born girls and women to compete as female athletes). The bill represents what every American should feel. It would be discriminatory to think otherwise.

Stadium debut

It was encouraging to see opportunity in action for downtown businesses to share in the benefits of last Saturday’s Delano baseball stadium debut.

The advantages of Wichitans walking from downtown to the Delano area seems to be that they’ll visit more restaurants and bars in the area, strengthening the idea of a connected Wichita community, and providing surely a welcome reprieve for the business owners having suffered through the past 12 months of Covid-19.

It’s not hard to envision a new tradition taking shape with thousands of fans walking to the stadium from downtown, Riverside, and Delano. It seems akin to English football fans walking from their favorite pub to cheer on their favorite footballers creating a buzz, an atmosphere, something FUN worth sharing, remembering, and doing again and again.

Hopefully this will encourage those that are adamant about more stadium parking to think more openly about the potential economic advantages to a more walkable downtown Wichita.

I was not a supporter of the stadium due to its outrageous cost and bygone era attraction, but it’s built and it’s here so now it seems only prudent to share the economic potential with as many small businesses as possible.

Stadium name

I am wondering why the name “Riverfront Stadium” was picked for the Wind Surge’s ballpark, when the Cincinnati Reds’ Stadium had the name over 50 years ago. How about an original idea?