Maine Olympian Julia Clukey at Freeport highschool

Olympian Julia Clukey is passionate about her country and her health, two of the many reasons why she was the keynote speaker for Freeport High School’s 2nd Annual Spirit Day for Wellness. As part of her presentation, Clukey shared a short video highlighting her luge career and spoke about her commitment to her health and the responsibilities that come with being an Olympian. In addition to her training regimen and nutrition, she also shared the experiences she had growing up and the challenges she has faced, emphasizing the importance of responsibility and healthy life choices.

“By sharing my experiences, I want to help students understand the responsibility we all have to care about our health. Every day we all make decisions about what we eat and drink that have an impact on our body. Understanding the importance of nutrition and making good decisions can make a huge difference in how we act and feel on a daily basis,” said Clukey.

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Kennebec Valley Community College (KVCC) has been granted a $100,000 federal award to help rural small businesses and agricultural producers reduce energy consumption and implement renewable energy technologies.The grant will enable KVCC to provide renewable energy development assistance for at least 140 agricultural producers and rural small businesses across Maine over the next two years.

“Work funded under this grant will support the delivery of a high level of renewable energy technical assistance to farms and small rural businesses throughout the state,” said Dana Doran, Director of Energy Programs at KVCC. “This assistance will help Maine farmers and small rural business owners save energy, improve their environment, and strengthen their bottom lines.”

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MECCA official with Roxane Quimby at the art college

Maine College of Art has received a gift of $400,000 from Roxanne Quimby to combine the Quimby Colony within the college’s curriculum and programs. The Quimby Colony was created in 2009 by Burt’s Bees founder Roxanne Quimby for the purpose of bringing gifted artists to Maine and contributing to their growth and success. For the past two years the Colony has focused on residencies for artists specializing in fashion and textiles.

The gift will support artists in residence, new faculty, student recruitment, equipment and resources to develop curriculum in the areas of fashion and textiles. “I am delighted to make this gift,” Quimby commented, “Maine College of Art, as a leader in contemporary higher education in the arts in Maine is uniquely positioned to carry on the work of the Quimby Colony.”

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The Maine House voted to override a veto of a bill that would help schools pay for certain critical medical services for special education students. The veto was overturned in the House of Representatives by a vote of 124 to 16. The vote was 35 to 0 in the Senate.

The vote is the Legislature’s first override of the governor’s 17 vetoes since he took office.

“Lawmakers overwhelmingly joined together to stand up for Maine children and our schools,” said Rep. Richard Wagner, D-Lewiston, who serves on the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, which unanimously passed the measure earlier this year. “This is a simple bill that ensures our school districts have access to funds to take care of students with special needs.”

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The Maine House rejected Governor Paul LePage’s bill to use public funds for private religious schools today in a vote of 84-59.

Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the measure, which would have undercut public education.
“Today’s vote was a victory for Maine’s public schools and families,” said Rep. Dick Wagner, D-Lewiston, the Democratic lead on the Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee. “Public tax dollars should not be used to send some children to private religious schools.”

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A student enrolled in JMG tells how important the program has been for her and others she knows

“On behalf of all the students we serve, I would like to thank the AT&T Foundation for investing in the future of Maine’s youth,” said Julie Poulin of Jobs for Maine’s Graduates. “Private sector partners like AT&T are not just talking about the skills and resources young people need to succeed in the 21st Century workforce, they’re doing something about it.”

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Forty-one Members of Congress have signed onto Congresswoman Chellie Pingree’s effort to convince the Obama Administration to ban pink slime from school cafeterias.

“McDonald’s won’t serve pink slime. Wal-Mart won’t sell it. And Maine school officials have said they’ll stop buying it,” said Pingree. “I think Americans have been pretty clear how disgusting they think this stuff is.”

Recently the U. S. Department of Agriculture authorized the purchase of 7 million pounds of the substance, called ‘finely textured lean beef trimmings’ by the beef industry, to be used in school lunches.

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The Maine Legislature this week gave final passage to a bill to protect student athletes from head injuries. The bill nearly passed into law in 2011 but was sent back to the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee for additional work.

“I’m thrilled to see this bill has finally passed after getting sidelined last year,” said Rep. Don Pilon, who introduced the measure last year. “Maine parents and student athletes will now have the critical protections to ensure a simple head injury doesn’t result in deadly repercussions.”

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Congresswoman Chellie Pingree said the Obama Administration’s decision to allow schools to opt out of buying a manufactured meat product called “pink slime” doesn’t go far enough and repeated her call for an outright ban in using the substance in school lunches.

“This really shouldn’t be complicated,” said Pingree . “What we really need is an outright ban on serving pink slime in school lunches and I doubt you’d find too many families in America who think their kids need to have the option to keep eating the stuff.”

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Good Will-Hinckley has received a $900 grant from the State of Maine’s Project Canopy program to plant trees on its central Maine campus.

“Our students are the next generation of farmers, biologists, and forest conservationists in the state of Maine, so we are truly grateful to the Department of Conservation for recognizing their unique role in promoting the importance of tree cover to Maine’s economy and our very identity as a state,” said Glenn Cummings, President and Executive Director of Good Will-Hinckley and the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences.

MeANS is the state’s newest high school and offers a hands-on, project-based curriculum to students statewide based on themes of agriculture, forestry, and environmental sciences. MeANS students this spring will plant trees near the Moody School building. The trees will honor the first class at MeANS and serve as a windbreak, blocking wind from the adjacent field.

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