The Marietta / Cobb Museum of Art is hosting Martinis & Music. Enjoy Martinis from the cash bar, hors d’oeuvres, and musical entertainment along with access to all exhibitions from 5:30pm to 8:30pm.
Date:
Friday, August 20, 2021
Time:
5:30pm to 8:30pm.
Admission
$10 per person
Free to museum members
Cash Bar
Location:
The Marietta / Cobb Museum of Art
30 Atlanta St SE
Marietta, GA 30060
For more information, call (770) 528-1444.
It all started by happenstance.
“I was at a groundbreaking for the Receiving Hope Center, which is a residential intake center for trafficked youth in Georgia, when I met Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp and started talking to her about the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Georgia (CACGA),” recalls Aleks Jagiella-Litts, CEO and General Counsel for CACGA
With 52 centers spanning across Georgia, Jagiella-Litts was confident that the CACGA could play an integral role in supporting the First Lady’s initiative, as children who are victims of sexual exploitation and human trafficking are also victims of child abuse.
“No one takes better care of children in these situations than interventional specialists, detectives and health care staffs that work across the state in our children’s advocacy centers,” Jagiella-Litts says. “Our centers have the specialists who can walk through these cases all along the way with children, and we can help change the trajectory for these children, which can have a ripple effect that can go on for generations.”
While attending a press conference at Atlantic Station in early 2019 for her husband, First Lady Kemp saw 72 school buses lined up in the street outside the event. “It represented 3,600 children who are taken into human trafficking in a single year in Georgia,” she recalls learning that day. After campaigning for more than two years with her husband, First Lady Kemp wanted to know why she hadn’t heard this statistic before. “I wanted to know why we weren’t talking about it, and after I started learning about it, I figured out why people aren’t talking more about it — because it’s so difficult to talk about — but we are going to talk about it now.”
In February of 2019, First Lady Kemp formed the Georgians for Refuge, Action, Compassion and Education (GRACE) Commission, which was created to combat the threat of human trafficking in Georgia. “Sexual exploitation of children and human trafficking is everywhere,” she says. “It’s not just in metro Atlanta, and it’s not just in poverty-stricken areas. It gives nobody a hall pass and affects everybody. We just need to be able to talk about it so that our kids are aware of it, and so that we can help protect our vulnerable.”
In order to support First Lady Kemp’s push to end human trafficking and sexual exploitation of children in Georgia, CACGA helped create the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC) Response Team. Launched in October 2020, the team is a multiyear project administered by the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and funded in part by an $800,000 grant from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Office for Victims of Crime. The CSEC Response Team is designed to improve the lives and overall outcomes for child and youth victims of human trafficking, child sex trafficking, and other sexual exploitation of children for commercial purposes.
“We formed the GRACE Commission so that Gov. Brian Kemp and I could bring all the experts to the table, and we learned through the creation of the CSEC Response Team that there have been experts who have been working on this for decades all along,” says First Lady Kemp. “I’m humbled and honored to be associated with so many great people who are working so hard. I’m just here to support them.”
Jagiella-Litts says that Georgia is lucky to have our CSEC Response Ream, as well as support from First Lady Kemp and the state, because programs like this are not available in some states. “People are often afraid to talk about this, because it’s a very secretive topic,” she adds. “But we protect the perpetrators by keeping it in the dark, and you can’t eradicate something you can’t see or isn’t being talked about.”
Before launching the CSEC Response Team, Jagiella-Litts reviewed state data to help identify regions that are considered “hot spots” for the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Three of the hot pots are in the Atlanta area, including Cobb County, and a fourth is in middle Georgia. Each hot spot received a $40,000 grant to help support their response to CSEC in their regions.
“I was one of the first people Aleks reached out to,” says Jinger Robins, CEO and founder of Marietta-based SafePath Children’s Advocacy Center, which serves children and families in Cobb County and surrounding areas. “She asked if we’d be willing to take on this challenge as one of the core regions with higher numbers, and I didn’t even stop for a second to think about it. I knew we wanted to say, ‘yes.’”
SafePath is one of the strongest children’s advocacy centers in the state, says Jagiella-Litts. “Jinger has a phenomenal intervention team. They are on every training we provide, and they are always there and want to know how they can do better to serve the kids across our state.”
Upon learning about the CSEC Response Team and how children’s advocacy centers would support First Lady Kemp’s initiative, Robins recalled a child abuse case her team responded to 15 years ago. “The parents were having their teenage daughter engage in sexual behavior with the owner of their trailer for their rent,” Robins recalls. “Looking back, we’ve had a number of cases like that, but they were never identified as sexual exploitation or human trafficking.”
They have also realized that runaways aren’t always runaways. “Through a different lens of human trafficking and child exploitation, we are trying to figure out who or what those children may have been running away from or to,” adds Robins. And with support from First Lady Kemp, the GRACE Commission, and the CSEC Response Team, SafePath is now able to better identify and serve children who are victims of sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
“This partnership makes Cobb an even a better place to live,” Robins adds. “We are offering an ‘out’ for these children, and we are offering the services it takes to protect our children — not just from a basic level, but from all the intricate levels that get involved with children who are sexually exploited and victims of trafficking. That is huge, because it shows that Cobb’s commitment to protecting children has grown to the next level.”
And First Lady Kemp is extremely appreciative for the work of Robins, SafePath, and other children’s advocacy centers across the state that are working diligently to combat this issue. “Thank you for putting a louder voice on this,” she concludes. “Everybody deserves a good life. These kids don’t deserve to lose their childhood. We are going to fight for them — every single day — until we can get this out of our state.”
Helpful resources
Local and state websites:
To characterize the City of Marietta as art-friendly would be an understatement. Residents and visitors alike are blessed with a plethora of performing arts centers, galleries, museums, public art displays, and annual arts celebrations. One outstanding example is Project 23Square, which was started by the Marietta Arts Council in 2018 to elevate the arts throughout all 23 square miles of the city. The Marietta Arts Council is a volunteer-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to enriching the artistic and cultural landscape of the City of Marietta through advocacy, education, and public art.
The impetus for Project 23Square began with the inaugural M2R TrailFest, which introduced a mural tour, sculpture garden, mile-long fence gallery, and numerous performances stretching along two miles of the downtown Marietta urban walking and biking trail known as the Mountain to River Trail. The Marietta Arts Council works with community leaders, the Marietta City Council, and representatives from each of the Wards of the City to identify appropriate areas for activation and installation. A dozen murals are currently on display, as well as two public art installations along the M2R Trail: The Bridge of Hope and The Bridge of Heroes. Additionally, the “Keys to the City” initiative features pianos painted by local artists.
“The arts are such a crucial part of the fabric of Marietta. We are fortunate to have a rich and diverse offering of visual arts, performing arts, and cultural arts in our city,” said Marietta Arts Council President Bonnie Buckner Reavis. “The Marietta Arts Council works diligently to engage the public with installations and immersive experiences that showcase the city’s assets and its people. We are thrilled to hear that so many visitors are drawn to Marietta because of the work we have been involved with. With only a few years under our belt, we are excited about what our continued efforts will bring to the Marietta art scene.”
The M2R Fence Gallery is a curated installation, which debuted trackside in downtown Marietta. The M2R Fence Gallery features more than 100 works of fine art and photography from over 50 artists, ranging from student artists to working artists. Images of the artwork have been printed on 30” x 40” weather-safe panels, thanks to the gallery’s production partner, MaxVision. Among the fine art and photography on display is a special exhibition from photographer Justin Hadley called “6 Feet From Friends: A series of portraits taken during the time of isolation.” Capturing images of conversations from six feet away in a way that depicts how the human eye sees a scene, Hadley says this project is about connecting — and reconnecting — and helping each other understand what we are going through at once, together, and alone. It is about getting to know people better and setting the precedent for how we can remain better friends.
If you have spent any time at all in downtown Marietta, then you’ve likely seen some of the murals painted on many of the area’s historic buildings. While some of the murals are hard to miss — the colorful “Marietta” painting alongside the railroad tracks and trail at Thaicoon Restaurant — others are worth finding, such as the “May-Retta” mural outside Two Birds Taphouse or the “Pétanque in the Twilight” at Douceur de France café and bakery.
Currently, there are murals scattered throughout downtown Marietta as part of Project 23Square. You can explore the area yourself to see if you can spot them all, or you can visit the Marietta Arts Council’s website (mariettaartscouncil.com) to see the murals and pinpoint their locations. On the site, you also can learn about each of the artists who painted these beautiful works and read about the inspiration behind each mural. For example, did you know that Craig Stanley, the artist behind the “Marietta” wall at Thaicoon, has designed sets and backgrounds for several TV programs and films?
Bridge of Heroes — This pedestrian bridge crosses the South 120 Loop near the intersection at Powder Springs Street. Multi-colored Lucite panels are affixed to the structure in a stunning display, utilizing the colors associated with our first responders and healthcare heroes: red (fire), blue (police), and purple (healthcare workers).
Bridge of Hope — This pedestrian bridge crosses the North 120 Loop at The Brumby Lofts. Multiple jewel-colored Lucite panels here also offer a glimmering spectacle. As light passes through the panels, those traversing the bridge will experience a stained glass effect. Suspended overhead, white doves made of recycled plastic evoke a sense of hope, and were dedicated to the Marietta High School Graduating Class of 2020.
Sculpture Tour — Each May, as part of the M2R TrailFest, a collection of outdoor sculptures is installed throughout city parks and common areas. The sculptures remain available for public viewing for 60 days. Several local artists have been part of previous sculpture tours and “Free Art Scavenger Hunts” during M2R TrailFest. Bronze, wood, and steel sculptures have been displayed in Atherton Square and outside local churches. And in 2019, Atlanta-based artist Catlanta designed and created 20 pieces of free art that he placed along the trail so that festival attendees could take home their own memento from the day. Perhaps you were lucky enough to find one!
As you can see, there’s a great deal of arts and culture to be found in and around Marietta, and much of it can be seen outdoors. So get out there this spring. Explore Marietta. Walk the Mountain to River Trail. Get some exercise and breath some fresh air. It’s a safe bet that we all need more of this in our lives.
Cobb and Douglas Public Health have converted the Jim R Miller Park facility from a testing center to a drive-through COVID vaccination center. Appointments are required and available in phases.
Phase 1A began on Thursday, January 7 for healthcare personnel working on the front lines of the pandemic. Participants are asked for proof of healthcare personnel status and priority is given to Cobb and Douglas County residents.
On Tuesday, January 12, phase 1A+ starts for public safety professionals and individuals age 65 years and older. An appointment system for people in Phase 1A+ will be available online at www.cobbanddouglaspublichealth.com beginning on Monday, January 11.
COVID-19 testing is no longer available at Jim Miller park, though it will still be available at many locations throughout the county. Testing registration is available online at www.cobbanddouglaspublichealth.com.
Vaccines are administered by appointment only (no walk-up appointments are available) and participants will be asked to remain on-site in their vehicles for 15 minutes for post-vaccination observation by medical professionals.
Our community spent most of 2020 learning how to live through a pandemic, and a spotlight was cast on nurses and the vital role they play in caring for people during some of their most difficult moments. We’ve heard countless stories of the impact of nurses when the worst happens and our loved ones end up in the hospital — alone — fighting for life.
While quality nursing care was essential to saving lives far before a pandemic struck, the current crisis has highlighted the work of these heroes and brought to light very real challenges they face today.
COVID-19 has further emphasized the ongoing need for compassionate, skilled nurses across our country and in our own community. So how do we ensure quality nursing care for the future?
We had the opportunity to meet virtually with nursing leaders from Chattahoochee Technical College and Wellstar Health System to see how they are meeting today’s healthcare challenges, what they’ve learned from the pandemic, and how they’re preparing nurses to provide quality care long into the future.
“The pandemic has shined a light on this very human, very talented, and very necessary role our nurses play for our patients every single day, not just during a pandemic,” said Jill Case-Wirth, MHA, BSN, RN, senior vice president and chief nursing executive of Wellstar.
Nurses provide care, but more importantly, they provide human compassion and connection, she pointed out. In addition to their vital role in medical care, they take requests for a favorite song, dial a beloved granddaughter, or hold a patient’s hand to offer support.
Case-Wirth shared a story about a patient and his nurse at Wellstar Paulding Hospital. Like many fighting COVID-19, he was struggling to breathe and came to a point where he could no longer continue to do so on his own. His compassionate ICU nurse, Veronica [last name withheld], told him the doctor would come in to discuss intubation, the process when a tube is inserted through the mouth into the airway. Fully covered and practically disguised in PPE from head to toe, the nurse made a promise.
“I told my patient that I’d promise to be by his side and even though he could not see my face because of the PPE, that I was smiling at him,” Veronica recalled. “And through his labored breath, my patient simply said, ‘You are beautiful.’ I said, ‘Hey, how do you know that? You can’t even see me.” And he said, ‘I do see you, I see your heart, and you are my nurse. I’m not afraid.’ And in that moment, that was my ‘why.’”
The patient fought for his life, and ultimately survived COVID-19. Later, he reached out to commend Veronica for the comfort she provided during what he called the toughest moment of his life. “During this pandemic, when loved ones have sometimes had to settle for the safety of Facetime chats instead of in-person visits, our nurses have been a constant, reassuring presence,” Case-Wirth said.
Unfortunately, while some nurses have found their “why” — their purpose — validated during this time, countless others have experienced burnout, including physical and emotional exhaustion; decreased job fulfillment; movement away from bedside roles; and even abandonment of the profession. Nurses are people caring for people, so providing care for the caregivers is a priority for Wellstar.
“The pandemic has placed additional professional and personal burdens on nurses as they strive to meet complex clinical and emotional needs, providing compassion and companionship in the absence of family,” Case-Wirth said. “Many nurses find themselves giving everything they have to help patients, often denying self-care.”
She said Wellstar implemented proactive approaches to address the stress, anxiety, and potential for burnout among its 7,000 nurses early in April. Resources included ways to mitigate burnout, such as “respite shifts” where nurses could work on non-COVID floors, resources to improve their quality of life, and peer support groups.
Wellstar team members, including nurses and nursing partners at every level, are empowered to identify opportunities and procedures to be more efficient and effective. Case-Wirth explained this helps impact the future of quality care at Wellstar hospitals. One example of how a nurse can make a big impact comes out of Wellstar Cobb Hospital. According to Case-Wirth, an ICU nurse named Rosmery [last name withheld] led the way to put into practice an evidence-based manual on prone process for critically-ill patients with COVID-19. “This process has proven to be crucial for patient recovery and was implemented throughout our system,” Case-Wirth said.
Another Wellstar initiative to improve patient outcomes is a new virtual nurse program. Highly trained rapid response nurses are paired with primary care nurses who monitor patient conditions, vital signs, and symptoms at patients’ bedsides.
Finally, while this article has focused primarily on how Wellstar is improving quality in the wake of the pandemic, Wellstar has long-focused on education and onboarding new nurses. The health system plays a key partnership role with Georgia-based schools of nursing, including Kennesaw State University Wellstar School of Nursing, Mercer University’s Georgia Baptist College of Nursing, and the Wellstar Nursing Career Pathway Program for high school students. In these relationships, the health system provides faculty and clinical learning sites. Wellstar also offers a 12-month Graduate Residency Program that nurtures new nurses transitioning into practice during their first year and includes professional enrichment classes as well as acute, critical, and specialty training.
Wellstar also partnered with Chattahoochee Technical College to institute a certified nursing assistant training program for existing team members who want to become dedicated caregivers and fill critical nursing support roles. The program introduces students to the role and responsibilities of the nursing aide, provides training required to serve as a certified nursing assistant, and enables Wellstar employees to pass their Georgia certification examination.
“We’re leading the charge to prepare nurses for long-lasting careers and making sure that nurses — past, present, and future — know that Wellstar values the vital role they play in providing compassionate care,” Case-Wirth said.
“Our community wants to help our nation become healthier and deal with this pandemic,” said Dr. Quetina Pittman-Howell, Ph.D., RN.
As the dean of Nursing at Chattahoochee Tech, Pittman-Howell saw applications for the nursing programs increase, even as new challenges present themselves for students and faculty.
“In March, we got the email that we were going online 100 percent and at the same time, our partners said they were pulling all students out of the clinical setting,” Dr. Pittman-Howell said. “We’re the pipeline to practice. If we can’t get students out on time, this limits the number of qualified nurses we can provide our partners. It was very important for the faculty to work together to meet requirements for the accrediting body so our students could get clinical hours.”
Simulations — along with real-world clinical practice — help develop nursing judgement, a combination of concepts including critical thinking, evidence-based practice, and clinical decision making. To continue preparing students to provide excellent nursing care, it was critical to take these traditionally in-person methods online. “Nursing judgement is one of the most important parts to prepare that student to manage patient care,” Dr. Pittman-Howell said. “When you think of nursing, it is an application practice. In nursing education, it is our responsibility to allow students to touch, feel, and do. It’s like developing a muscle.”
After going virtual, nursing program faculty collaborated daily, creating critical opportunities for students to practice nursing judgement in nontraditional ways. Tech-savvy instructors translated their popular scramble classroom model to virtual, providing a mix of lecture and interactive learning. And, clinical rotations went online. “The faculty became the patients,” she remembered. “Students would log in and ‘care’ for us.”
Thankfully, she said students are now back in clinical settings, gaining valuable bedside experience.
The nursing program has an advisory board made up of nurses and community members who discuss the realities of the clinical settings to better impact students. And, like many members of the faculty, Dr. Pittman-Howell is a practicing nurse. She noted that resilience is a topic they have discussed more often since the beginning of the pandemic. “Nurses are getting worn down,” she said. “We need to maintain the number of nurses at the bedside.”
As a result, the faculty has begun to infuse resiliency into courses, covering topics such as coping with emotional family members who can’t see patients because of COVID-related visiting restrictions; recognizing feelings of burnout and stress that come with additional donning and doffing of protective equipment throughout the day; and the importance of self-care.
“We have to be focused as a profession on taking care of ourselves,” she said, noting that nursing school stress is good practice for the future.
Faculty encourage students to plan blocks of time for themselves and take a breather, whether it’s through meditation, getting a manicure, or working on a project. “We must take care of ourselves to make sure every patient is cared for with integrity and decency and honor,” Dr. Pittman-Howell said.
Celebrating her tenth year at the technical college, Dr. Pittman-Howell reflected on the program’s growth. A decade ago, she was a professor in the yet-to-be-accredited program; there were just 18 students. “I had the opportunity to work with great faculty and we built it into a very competitive program,” she said.
In 2020, Chattahoochee Tech’s RN program was ranked third in the state by RegisteredNursing.org and there were 416 applications for just 40 seats. “The caliber of our program puts our students at a huge advantage,” she said. “You can be an effective nurse when you go to a technical college.”
The world’s largest holiday drive-through animated light show is coming to Marietta. World of Illumination features the world’s largest holiday drive-through theme park that that includes animated Christmas lights set to music you know and love. A mile-long drive-through show contains nearly two million lights that make a must-see experience for the entire family.
Dates:
Open Tuesday through Sunday from November 15, 2024, through December 29, 2024. Also open on select Mondays: December 9, December 16, and December 23, 2024.
Time:
6 pm to 10 pm, rain or shine.
Admission:
Tickets are $39.99 weekdays to 49.99 weekends and holidays, plus tax of $2.40 weekdays to $3 weekends/holidays, for a total of $42.39 weekdays to $52.99 per vehicle on weekends and holidays.
Address:
250 Cobb Pkwy N #100, Marietta, GA 30062
Parking:
No parking – this is a drive through light experience.
For more information, please call (855) 554-0005 or visit worldofillumination.com
So, you think you’ve done everything right in order to live out your golden years comfortably? You’re living in your “forever home.” You are retired or nearing retirement. You have savings and a well-funded retirement account. You have great healthcare coverage, and once you reach a certain age, the government will pick up the slack through Medicare, right? Well, it turns out there’s at least one more to-do item if you want to live worry-free into old age. Start looking into long-term care insurance.
First, you are to be commended if you’ve saved enough for retirement; most Americans are not in your position. In fact, according to Bankrate, most Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 only have about 12 percent of what they’ll need in order to retire. And Fidelity reports that an average retired couple age 65 in 2020 may need approximately $295,000 saved (after tax) to cover healthcare expenses in retirement. Of course, Fidelity notes that the amount you’ll need will depend on when and where you retire, how healthy you are, and how long you live.
Second, your healthcare coverage could leave you short-changed when it comes to care for certain health conditions such as cognitive decline or physical disabilities. This is where long-term care insurance is beneficial. “Health insurance is there to help you get better. It’s delivered by somebody with a lot of training — a medical doctor, a physical therapist, a nurse — and they use things like ‘skilled care,’ practices designed to help you get better,” says Corey Rieck, MBA, CLTC, president and founder of The Long Term Care Planning Group (LTC) in Marietta. “And health insurance is used when there’s an expectation of improvement. Long-term care is used when the client is not going to get better and the care is categorized as ‘non-skilled care.’ …They’re like bookends. One helps you when you’re getting better; one helps you when you’re not getting better. And a lot of people don’t understand that Medicare is just like private health insurance. It exists to help people 65 years of age and greater get better. And long-term care helps when you’re not getting better.”
Rieck knows first-hand about the costs of healthcare in retirement, having assisted both of his parents through long illnesses. That’s why in 2001 he decided to devote the remainder of his career to helping others avoid the potentially high costs of healthcare at a time when they should be enjoying their freedom and independence. His company, LTC, specializes in delivering long-term care education and coverage to companies, high-net worth individuals, and large organizations. “I’ve tried my best to help people understand what [long-term care insurance] is and if they should do anything about it, and what the issues are,” Rieck said. “We use all the [insurance] carriers. We’re not tied to anyone. We’re neutral.”
The cost for long-term care insurance depends on a person’s age, their overall health, and the type of plan chosen. In any case, the peace of mind it could provide is nearly priceless. At LTC, clients are educated on all of their options and never are coerced into buying anything. The decision is theirs. Rieck just wants everyone to be properly informed. A long-term care issue, he says, can completely unravel one’s financial plan. “[For some people], the time is not right for them to do this, but the timing is always right to get your questions answered,” says Rieck. “And if you don’t realize that [typical insurance doesn’t pay] for long-term care, if you don’t realize that the exposure for somebody that has a long-term care issue can be as bad as $250 a day, that’s $90,000 a year.”
You may be asking yourself, “wouldn’t my disability insurance cover these costs?” Put simply, no. “[Disability insurance] is geared to replace a certain portion of a client’s income while they’re working, should they become disabled and meet the qualifications of that disability contract,” Rieck said. “And it usually ends when the client is 65.”
If you have more questions about long-term care insurance and whether or not it is right for you, Rieck has provided a brief guide on the next two pages. He also has created an educational video, which could help inform your decision. You can find that brief webinar on YouTube at https://youtu.be/NC5uAugAwf4. November is Long-Term Care Awareness Month, so now is a good time to start planning for your future. Enjoy your golden years with additional peace of mind.
“We want to be respectful of budgets. We want to be respectful of risk and what a client’s position toward risk is,” said Rieck. “And, you know, the only way you can do that is if you have an open discussion with them.”
Two Important Long-Term Care Considerations by D. Corey Rieck, MBA, CLTC
What would be the impact of a prolonged period of health-related struggles on your family, income, personal assets, and investments? You cannot fully assess the impact unless you understand the costs of long-term care.
An unfunded or underfunded long-term care event can do irreparable harm to your family’s plans, investment performance, current and future income, and overall financial plan going forward. There also is the emotional, mental and physical stress that long-term care can put on family relationships. Without a plan, long-term care is almost always provided by a person’s family.
What is long-term care?
Put simply, long-term care can be required because of a prolonged illness or disability. It also can include caring for a family member who needs help or support because they are living a long life.
The need for long-term care can be triggered at any stage of life by an accident, stroke, disease, or the onset of Alzheimer’s. Examples include a grandmother with dementia or a parent with multiple sclerosis.
More specifically, long-term care is required when a person needs help with two or more of these six activities of daily living (ADLs):
1. Bathing – The ability to wash oneself and perform personal grooming (i.e. shaving, brushing teeth).
2. Dressing – The ability to dress oneself, including buttoning and zipping as needed.
3. Eating – The ability to feed oneself.
4. Transferring – The ability to either walk or physically transfer oneself from a bed to a wheelchair and back again.
5. Toileting – The ability to get on and off the toilet.
6. Continence – The ability to control one’s bladder and bowel functions.
Or, long-term care can be required when a loved one needs help because of cognitive impairment. For example, a person needs daily help when they struggle with one or more of the following:
1. Orientation as to person, place or time.
2. Issues with abstract or deductive reasoning.
3. Judgment as it relates to safety awareness.
4. Frequent or complete loss of memory.
Why consider long-term care planning?
The financial cost of long-term care will impact your other financial plans. Long-term care can cost more than $250 per day in cities like Atlanta in the United States today. That is $7,500 per month and $90,000 annually, of which your health insurance will cover little to none. Long-term care costs vary by service and the city and state where you are receiving care. These costs can increase 3-5 percent annually. The ongoing cumulative costs can be even more significant. If long-term care expenses are unfunded, they quickly undermine a financial plan and can negatively impact retirement planning.
Why consider long-term care insurance?
Your health insurance or Medicare will not pay for long-term care expenses. Private health insurance or Medicare only covers expenses to cure a person using skilled care delivered by a licensed medical professional. Examples of skilled care can include tube feeding and physical therapy. Long-term care expenses incur when a person needs assistance with the activities of daily living or cognitive impairment. Long-term care is not provided by licensed medical professionals, home health aides, or personal care attendants.
This distinction between skilled and non-skilled care is critical. Consider your health insurance and long-term care insurance as book ends. One helps you with skilled care when there is an expectation of you getting better. The other helps you when there is no expectation of improvement using unskilled care.
Here are the next steps you need to take:
• Work with a long-term care planning expert who has access to multiple insurance carriers and coverage options to provide you the best recommendations based on your individual health and preference of long-term care.
Last year, Marietta-based Aguair, a manufacturer of engineered systems for agribusiness and other markets, was doing business as usual. Aguair’s ClensAir™, SaniCart™, Aquatronics™, and other products are used widely to extend the life of perishables from farm-to-fork, through factors such as air sanitization, humidity control, aeroponics, water treatment and biosecurity in greenhouses, storage facilities, processing centers, transportation and retail store backrooms. Aguair and its parent company, Prodew Inc., have been operating successfully in Georgia for a combined 25 years. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
But this isn’t a tale of woe that so many industries and individuals have experienced in 2020. This is a tale of ingenuity, adaptability, and triumph. Aguair leadership saw an opportunity to help, a chance to assist with re-openings, including helping schools conduct in-person learning while keeping their students safe.
With its equipment already in use across the food industry, Aguair knew that it could help shuttered businesses and schools to reopen with a broad sense of security and assurance by disinfecting indoor environments and limiting the spread of pathogens.
“What we realized is that there is a growing need for this kind of equipment in public spaces and for public safety, for public health,” said Nadya Merchant, Ph.D., Aguair scientific director. “Aguair has seen a huge increase in demand for its equipment over the last few months, as people have started to try to get back to normal. You have dentist offices, veterinarians, you’ve got schools, hotels, fitness centers, restaurants, everyone scrambling to make their facilities safe.”
All of these industries and companies were calling for information regarding two Aguair products that are effective at fighting the spread of pathogens, the company reports — the mobile SaniCart and the ClensAir. While interest has been shown from customers from across the United States, Aguair has gotten particular traction in the State of Nevada.
Word began to spread last spring following reports out of Nevada of the successful use of SaniCart to help the Boys & Girls Clubs there to reopen following closure due to the pandemic. Executives there conducted extensive research to ensure safety, removing shared equipment such as computers and game tables. They also wanted to find an effective and efficient way to sanitize the facility for staff members and the hundreds of children they serve every day. When leadership there found Aguair, they knew they had located the right solution.
Mike Wurm, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club at Truckee Meadows in Reno, Nevada said that through the pandemic, their staff has reevaluated and improved their disinfection protocols. The thorough sanitization procedures put a big demand on staff, who at the beginning of the pandemic were spending hours wiping down surfaces. “SaniCart is great because it allows for more thorough disinfection without too much manpower.” His staff is using the equipment in close to 20 Boys and Girls Clubs through Reno and elsewhere in northern Nevada.
“SaniCart has been really good in our daycares,” Wurm said. His staff would completely bleach down all surfaces in the daycare centers every two hours. “With SaniCart, you roll in the machine and completely sanitize everything in the room in just 20 minutes. You don’t have to wipe down each toy or each block, because of the science behind the fogging machine that gets the disinfectant on every surface.”
In the computer labs, Wurm said, “We are no longer worried about electronics getting wet. We can sanitize keyboards and mics.” The Boys and Girls Cub centers purchased SaniCart with CARES Act funding and are using it throughout their buildings and even on their buses.
“SaniCart makes good sense, especially in our larger buildings,” Wurm said. “It goes a long way in replacing manpower. When kids leave an area, we roll in the machine, plug it in, turn it on, close the door, and the room is completely sanitized by the time the kids return. Before, we had a whole layer of staff disinfecting, now we just have one person working the SaniCart. It is efficient and also more thorough at disinfecting.”
When local community leaders heard about the successes at the Boys & Girls Clubs, a Nevada foundation stepped in to help many schools in rural northern Nevada that couldn’t afford such equipment on their own. This particular foundation assists northern Nevada communities with healthcare, education, medical research, and community service funding; and over the past few decades has funded millions in grants to northern Nevada non-profits and schools.
The foundation has provided grants to six school districts, two charter schools, and other Nevada non-profits to purchase sanitization solutions, including Aguair systems. Additionally, the foundation worked with Aguair to obtain deep discounts on SaniCart and ClensAir for the school districts that received foundation grants. The foundation wanted to make sure that as schools reopened, they were adding additional layers of protection to keep students and teachers safe. All of the school districts opted to purchase SaniCart — one unit per school building, and about 90 percent of the school districts also purchased ClensAir for their nurses’ offices and COVID-19 isolation rooms.
Harman Bains, director of business services at Lyon County School District near Reno was looking for efficient and convenient disinfecting solutions so that his staff could get away from manually disinfecting surfaces with a rag and spray bottle at the 18 schools in his district. When he heard of SaniCart as a sanitization solution that could be rolled around and put in a classroom, he was thrilled. His district has received funding from the local foundation to purchase SaniCart and ClensAir.
Bains said, “The convenience aspect of SaniCart is huge. We initially looked at electrostatic backpack sprayers, but the idea of carrying around 20-pound backpacks all day long was a hinderance.” Bains also likes the fact that the SaniCart disinfectant tank has a larger capacity, so it doesn’t need to be refilled as frequently, and that unlike with other sprayers, his staff doesn’t need to wipe down surfaces after using SaniCart. The dry micro-fog leaves no wetness behind.
The school district is using ClensAir air purifiers in each of their nurse’s offices. “We placed ClensAir on top of the doors to keep the air clean as kids who might not be feeling well come in and out of the nurse’s offices.”
Harman thanks the local foundation for funding this disinfection equipment that will “not only help fight this pandemic in our schools today, but will continue to make a positive impact on our students’ lives for years and even decades to come.”
The foundation hopes to inspire other organizations and school districts around the country to invest in technologies that help reduce airborne and surface transmission of pathogens and reduce missed school days among students.
Other organizations and businesses in Nevada including a community college, an arts and cultural center, and a museum have also invested in Aguair technology.
SaniCart is a wheeled unit that can be used with several disinfecting agents to deliver air and surface sanitization. The SaniCart emits a dry fog of disinfectant that leaves no moisture behind. “This spray basically covers the entire room, cleaning surfaces, and disinfecting the air. You have disinfectant settling on all the surfaces, underneath, behind, and in between. Nothing is left untouched,” Dr. Merchant said.
ClensAir is an air purifying system that uses a six-stage air sanitization process, including technology that was developed for NASA. The unit consisting of particulate and antimicrobial filters, UV and photocatalytic lamps, an odor control filter, and a surface decontaminant. Independent lab tests have shown ClensAir to be over 99.9-percent effective in removing viruses and bacteria.
All of this from a small, rectangular container about 42 inches long (and weighing 15-20 pounds) that is easily wall-mounted or placed on a shelf and can be left to do its job until it requires a filter change. And the ClensAir has built-in filter monitors to remind users when those items need to be changed — based on the environment in which they are placed.
Dr. Merchant says that combining SaniCart and ClensAir creates a complete sanitization package for businesses like restaurants, hotels, airlines, and medical offices, as well as churches. Other areas where Aguair products are now being used and installed include office buildings, co-working spaces, and other commercial properties. The company has steadily increased production to meet this growing demand. “We have hired many more people; we are trying to work as fast as we can,” she said. “And remember,” she added, “this pandemic won’t last forever, but there always will be the annual flu, and other viruses — such as the common cold — to deal with on a regular basis. Looking at it that way, commercial sanitization equipment is well worth the investment.”
Locally, schools still are working out how such equipment might fit into their budgets, or where they could find funding, but there are spaces in metro-Atlanta that have installed Aguair equipment for patrons, including the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta and the City of Refuge Innovation Hub.
“We are humbled to collaborate with this foundation, who chooses to remain anonymous, and the Boys & Girls Clubs in Nevada, to help safeguard children in rural Nevadan communities. Aguair, and its parent company, Prodew, are also indebted to the City of Marietta and to Cobb County for supporting our growth over the last two decades,” Dr. Merchant said. “It is with this local backing that Aguair has been able to research and develop world-class sanitization equipment such as SaniCart and ClensAir.”
In 2020, we’ve all had much too much time at home, as we’ve telecommuted and tried to limit our time in crowds or in busy, enclosed spaces. Thus, it has been harder to ignore all of those home improvement projects and organizational needs that once were all too easy to put off. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Well, when you’re looking out across your living space from your seemingly permanent work-from-home station, your eyes eventually start to focus on the room you had been planning to redecorate, or the flooring you no longer admire, or — for me — the many sections and collections of “things” that I have wanted to organize or reorganize. You see, I’m a bit of an aspirational super-organizer. Not quite a Marie Kondo type, but close. Spending hours on end at The Container Store is my idea of heaven. But it seems that no matter how many organization projects I complete, there are others ready to take their place in the front of my mind. And now that I’ve been at home for the better part of a year, all of those to-do list projects are screaming for attention.
There’s an endless number of online resources to help you get your home organized. A recent one I ran across from UK-based retailer Wren Kitchens offers an entire library of organizational tips, including how to get started. So below I’ve summarized their
“16 Amazing Tips for Organizing Your Home”:
Since its inception 10 years ago, the Literacy Week Program has supported more than 135,000 students in schools across Cobb, Paulding, Cherokee, Bartow, and Fulton counties. Launched by Cobb EMC in 2010 and followed by Gas South in 2015 as a co-sponsor, Literacy Week was created to encourage students’ love of reading and creative writing.
“The program supports the efforts of the schools, and the author and illustrator visits bring real-world examples to the classroom. Literacy Week inspires imagination and promotes lifelong reading habits,” explains Mark Justice, director of education and community relations at Cobb EMC. “Reading is one of the most important components of a successful education, and literacy supports successful STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] education.”
Literacy Week was started with New York Times Best Selling Author and Illustrator Brian Lies visiting just three schools. Justice says the response to Lies’ visits was so positive that Cobb EMC decided to make Literacy Week an annual event. Today, the program impacts students in 30 to 46 schools across five metro Atlanta counties. It is offered to students in kindergarten through 12th grade, and starting this year it also will be offered to college students.
The number of authors who participate changes each year, but they are expecting 12 authors to share their books and illustrations the last week in October during this year’s Literacy Week. “Literacy Week is more than inviting an author into a school to read one of their books,” Justice adds. “Instead, it is a focused time for students to be inspired to love reading and writing. Students learn about the process of writing and editing. A few of our authors are also illustrators. The students get to see live demonstrations and learn tips about how to draw.”
Justice adds that Literacy Week has become one of their most popular school programs and is one of Cobb EMC’s most important community efforts for education. “It is also probably the most demanding week of the school year for us, but we love every minute.”
Impacting the community at large
Gas South’s involvement in Literacy Week goes back to the company’s annual commitment of returning 5 percent of its profits back to the community, specifically to children in need in three areas: basic needs, education, and illness and disability.
“Cobb EMC has a strong education component to their community giving, so we thought co-sponsoring Literacy Week would be a great avenue to collaborate on,” shares Carley Stephens, community affairs program manager at Gas South, adding that this year alone, Gas South will be giving more than $1.2 million back to the community.
A large portion of Gas South employees have personally experienced the good deeds of Literacy Week, as their children are students at one of the participating schools — Norton Park Elementary School in Smyrna. “We know that we are not only impacting our communities, but we are bringing a really great program to the children of our own employees,” Stephens says. “One of the things we strive to do is to put people first, and that doesn’t just pertain to our customers. Taking care of our employees — our own family — is really important and impactful for the company to be able to touch everyone in that way and provide that support.”
A pandemic didn’t slow them down
This year’s program was held virtually to be respectful of social distancing rules and regulations instituted by many of the metro area’s school systems in light of COVID-19. “We normally have a kickoff event for schools on the first Monday of Literacy Week, giving media specialists and principals a chance to meet the authors and illustrators in advance of scheduled presentations,” Justice says. “We will not be able to host a kickoff dinner this year, though, because all of the presentations will be virtual.”
But, Cobb EMC’s mascot, Wattson the Red-Tailed Hawk, will visit close to 30 schools during this year’s Literacy Week. He also will be seen during virtual visits this year.
Stephens added that hosting this year’s event virtually will give presenters an opportunity to speak to smaller groups of students. “Kids will be able to interact in different ways with the authors and illustrators and ask more questions, which I think is really beneficial. …I think this will be a great opportunity for [them] to share their presentations and maybe be more focused on what the skills of a specific class or grade is learning at the time.”
To learn more about the community programs at Cobb EMC and Gas South, visit cobbemc.com/content/partners-education and gassouth.com/giving-back, respectively.
Highlights of Literacy Week:
