I am truly humbled and honored to have the opportunity to be a part of Meadowlark Hills.
Outdoor Encounters
October 3, 2024
Blog
Last Tuesday, the Ambassadors received a record number of donations during their annual Clothing Drive. Donations exceeded expectations. Because of the generosity of so many, donations were able to go to not one, but three beneficiaries. These stores included The Encore Shop, The Budget Shop, and Goodwill, all local thrift shops in Manhattan.
In the early 2000s, Meadowlark was in phase two of a three-phase growth and evolution as a community. As a part of this expansion, Meadowlark added its first duplexes on Meadowlark Circle. However, there was a hurdle: a small family cemetery dating from the mid-1800s to 1900. The original cemetery had a least four formal headstones, all of which had been removed by early in the twentieth century. Thus, by the early twenty-first century, almost nothing was known about this cemetery other than its location.
Oink! Now that the calendar has turned to October, temperatures are cooling, but activities to benefit Meadowlark’s Good Samaritan Fund are just heating up. It’s HOGtoberfest season, and Meadowlark Foundation has four squeal-worthy announcements!
Because of many generous donations to assist with paving Meadowlark's loop trail, a section stretching from Stillman Cemetery to the woods of Donner's Way is scheduled to be paved. This summer, grading and paving was completed from the west side of the bridge near the CenterPointe Physicians office to Donner's Way. This work also included walkways north of the community garden and from the trail to the physicians office parking lot.
The last weekend in August brought opportunities for the Manhattan community to learn more about Parkinson’s disease, participate in exercise, and obtain a first-hand look at people living life with endurance.
Last week, Meadowlark Ambassadors hosted a campus-wide food and hygiene drive to benefit the Blessing Boxes of Manhattan/Riley County.
The drive was inspired by Meadowlark team member Michelle Lawson, who had seen a recent news article that mentioned how numerous Blessing Boxes were turning up empty due to rising food costs and continuing effects from the pandemic.
One of the many discouraging facts of our time is that several authorities agree that of the number of birds present across our country in 1970, three-out-of-four of them no longer exist, an average of a seventy-five decline for all species—more for some species, less for others. And this includes two species once very common and familiar to us: the eastern and western meadowlarks.
Meadowlark Foundation’s loop trail project recently piqued the interest of Wamego Telecommunications Company, Inc., better known locally as WTC. Exhibiting a longtime philosophy of giving back to the communities they serve, WTC leaders this week presented a total of $10,000 toward the Paving the Way campaign — $5000 from WTC and another $5000 on behalf of the company from its lender, CoBank of Greenwood Village, Colo.
Typically, when people think about Parkinson’s disease, they think about the tremor (shake), but this is only one part of the disease that affects a person’s life. Shuffling gait, depression, apathy, constipation, and small handwriting are a few more of the symptoms that can disrupt quality of life for the person with Parkinson’s and his or her care partner(s). For 16 years, the Meadowlark Parkinson’s Program has been providing free education, exercise, outreach and engagement for people affected by Pd. How can these services be offered free of charge?
If human assumption is correct, one of the birds that blesses our lives (but seen here only infrequently) is totally unaware that its name and one of its primary personality traits were immortalized in the 1960 Pulitzer prize-winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and in a critically-acclaimed 1962 film of the same name.