The Allamakee Community School District (ACSD) Board of Education met for a pair of meetings within the past several weeks. Coverage of both meetings appears below.
JULY 23 SPECIAL MEETING
The Allamakee Community School District Board of Education met for a special board meeting Thursday morning, July 23. The board approved change order 22 in the amount of $12,173.45 for the Waukon Middle School HVAC project.
The Eastern Allamakee Community School District Board of Directors met for its regular monthly session Monday, August 10, at Kee High School in Lansing, with President Arla Wagner calling the meeting to order. Board members Heather Lutz (District 2), Joe Manning (At-Large), Tommy Martin (District 1) and Wagner (At-Large) were present. Board member Glen Delaney (District 3) was absent.
Superintendent Jay Mathis, Board Secretary and Financial Clerk Michele Martin, PK-5th Grade Principal Donna Thomas and Grades 6-12 Principal Liz Hill also attended. The board approved the meeting agenda with no public comment. Consent items were reviewed and approved, including previous meeting minutes, bills, the secretary’s financial report, the student activity report and the food service report.
The Allamakee and Winneshiek County Extension offices will host a no-cost, one-hour learning session for private well owners September 8. The program will help attendees understand their well’s water quality and connect them to resources to manage their well.
Not many know that Iowa has a unique funding source for free or low-cost annual testing of private wells, or that some water pollutants are odorless, tasteless and will not be removed by boiling water. Anyone curious about those topics should take advantage of the upcoming learning session which will detail how to test a private well and who can help, common contaminants, and factors that affect well water quality.
The Auxiliary of Veterans Memorial Hospital (VMH), Elliott Jewelers and Waukon Chamber of Commerce’s Women’s Health Day will be celebrated Tuesday, September 1, from 4-7 p.m. at the Allamakee Fairgrounds Pavilion. The theme of this years’ event is, “The Strength Within.”
A total of seven different speakers on a variety of popular health and wellness topics will outline the night with nearly 50 health, wellness and family agencies and vendors on site ready to visit about the services they offer. Goodie bags will be shared with the first 200 ladies who come through the doors. Sandwiches with a large variety of hors d’oeuvres will be served throughout the evening and a cash bar will be available.
August is National Immunization Awareness Month. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that history shows that vaccines are the safest, most effective way to protect yourself and your family from many preventable diseases.
Everyone should get all recommended vaccines at the recommended times. It is especially important for children and adolescents to get catch-up doses of any missed vaccines or vaccine doses as soon as they can. Adults should get all recommended vaccines for their age or other risk factors such as health condition or occupation. All adults should get tetanus boosters, seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccines, and any vaccines missed in childhood.
Vaccines strengthen the body’s natural defenses. To be immune is to be partially or fully resistant to a specific infectious disease or disease-causing organism. A person who is immune can resist the bacteria or viruses that cause a disease, but the protection is never perfect.
Maternity Services at VMH ... Katy Maker, Nurse Midwife at Veterans Memorial Hospital and Clinics, is pictured here examining a newborn in the Maternity Services Suites at Veterans Memorial Hospital. She reviews the benefits of breastfeeding for both mother and baby. Submitted photo.
by Katy Maker, Nurse Midwife and Nurse Practitioner, Veterans Memorial Hospital Medical Clinics
Choosing whether to breastfeed or formula feed your baby is only one of the many decisions expectant parents will make. It takes time to make such an important decision because it will not only affect your baby’s life but also the lives of the entire household. Breastfeeding is a commitment that both parents are involved in as it takes support from the partner to be successful.
“National Breastfeeding Week is an excellent time to think about lots of issues around how we feed our children,” states Katy Maker, Nurse Midwife at Veterans Memorial Hospital and Clinics. “The neat thing about breast milk is that it’s always ready, it’s made specifically for that one child, and there are many ways to involve the whole family.”
World Senior Citizens Day is August 21 and a time to honor the older adults who strengthen families, workplaces, and communities through their experiences, wisdom, and contributions.
Often times, senior citizens are lonely, depressed and in need of mental health support. Veterans Memorial Hospital’s (VMH) Senior Life Solutions (SLS) provides outpatient mental health services for older adults, including group therapy, individual therapy, psychiatric evaluation, and medication management.
This World Senior Citizens Day, celebrate older adults and encourage continued care for the mind, body, and spirit. Call 563-568-5560 or visit the Senior Life Solutions section of Veterans Memorial Hospital’s website to learn more at https://www.veteransmemorialhospital.com/services/senior_life_solutions/.
You can become a Dementia Friend by attending a one-hour information session to learn about living with dementia and the simple things you can do to support someone living with dementia. This session is free and open to the public at Robey Memorial Library in Waukon.
This one-hour session will be led by Madison Montorsi Dementia Service Specialist with Northeast Iowa Area Agency on Aging (NEI3A). At the session, you’ll learn some basics of dementia such as what dementia is, how it can affect a person, some tips for communicating with people who have dementia, and other ways to support people with dementia. No registration required and feel free to bring a friend.
- Thursday, August 27: 5-6 p.m. at Robey Memorial Library, 401 1st Avenue NW, Waukon, IA 52172
The Veterans Memorial Hospital (VMH) Diabetes Support Group will hold its next meeting Thursday, August 20 at 10 a.m. The meeting will be held in the Large Conference Room located on the lower level of the hospital.
This month’s topic will focus on diabetes and exercise. Through the generosity of the Postville and Waukon Lions Clubs, resistance bands have been purchased to promote exercise and building muscle. These bands will be shared with hospital outpatients with diabetes as well as all attendees to the August support group. At that meeting, Brad Krambeer, PTA, will be there to demonstrate some exercises that can be done with these resistance/exercise bands.
They will also discuss how exercise of different kinds can assist with blood sugar management.
