Author: Admin

• Allow parents and guardians to pick up meals to bring home to their kids;

• Temporarily waive meal times requirements to make it easier to pick up multiple-days’ worth of meals at once;

• Allow meals be served in non-congregate settings to support social distancing;

• Waive the requirement that afterschool meals and snacks served through certain programs be accompanied by educational activities to minimize exposure to the novel coronavirus; and

• Allow states, on an individual state-by-state basis, to serve free meals to children in all areas, rather than only those in areas where at least half of students receive free or reduced-price meals.

Today’s announcement is the latest in a series of actions that USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service has taken to uphold the USDA’s commitment to “Do Right and Feed Everyone” during this national emergency. Other actions include:

• Launching a new coronavirus webpage to proactively inform the public about USDA’s efforts to keep children and families fed;

• Providing more than five million meals a week through public-private partnership Meals to You;

• Increasing access to online purchasing by expanding the online purchasing pilot to more than half of all SNAP households;

• Debuting “Meals for Kids” interactive site finder – to help families find meals for children while schools are closed across more than 50,000 locations;

• Allowing states to issue emergency supplemental SNAP benefits totaling more than $2 billion per month to increase recipients’ purchasing power;

• Collecting solutions to feeding children impacted through feedingkids@usda.gov; and

• Providing more than 2,800 administrative flexibilities across programs to feed children and help families.

The Atlanta Artist Solidarity March was held June 8 at Theatrical Outfit (Photos by Asep Mawardi)

For a 10th consecutive day, thousands of protesters marched through the streets calling for an end to racial injustice and in memory of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery.

The Atlanta Police Department (APD) reported at 10:30 p.m. on June 7 that it had made no arrests for a third ay in a row. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms lifted the weekend curfew, which had been in place since May 30 after a night of looting, arson, and vandalism rocked the city.

On Sunday, protests and marches took place at the Governor’s Mansion in Buckhead, in the Old Fourth Ward, Atlanta BeltLine, Woodruff Park, Piedmont Park, Grant Park, and Centennial Park.

The city’s arts community gathered outside Theatrical Outfit on Luckie Street for The Atlanta Artist Solidarity March. The event was organized by B.L.A.C.T., an acronym for Black Leaders Advocating for Cultural Theater, founded in 2019 to create an artistic work environment for today’s black theater artist that is safe, nurturing and an accurate representation of our community.

The city had been criticized for its heavy-handedness with protesters last week, when APD was bolstered by the Georgia State Patrol and National Guard. Tear gas, rubber bullets and mass arrests were hallmarks of the first few days of the protest.

The protests show no signs of letting up. On Monday, June 8, protests are planned at Centennial Park (with a march to Fulton County Jail at 3 p.m.), the State Capitol at 6 p.m, Ebenezer Church at 5:30 p.m., an Election Awareness event at Rialto Theatre at 5 p.m. To see a full list of places where protest events are taking place visit @WhereProtest on Twitter.

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Emory University will install over 15,000 solar panels across 16 buildings on its Druid Hills campus, which will generate approximately 10 percent of Emory’s peak energy requirements and reduce Emory’s greenhouse gas emissions by about 4,300 metric tons.
The University has awarded Cherry Street Energy with a 20-year agreement to install 5.5. megawatts (MW) of solar generation across campus.

“Various Emory rooftops and parking decks will soon be home to an array of solar photovoltaic panels, converting our campus into a significant site for clean energy supporting Emory’s carbon commitment,” said Robin Morey, vice president of Campus Services and chief planning officer at Emory University. “This transformational project upholds Emory’s commitment to addressing climate change and building a resilient and sustainable future.”

Cherry Street will install more than 15,000 solar photovoltaic panels on building rooftops and parking structures across Emory as part of a Solar Energy Procurement Agreement (SEPA), an arrangement made legal in Georgia in 2015 that allows a private investor to install, own, and maintain solar panels with Emory buying the power at rates lower than charged by the utility. Under SEPA, there are no upfront costs to Emory.

The investment supports Emory’s newly revised greenhouse gas emissions goals, which now mirror the latest science articulated by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that requires a 45 percent reduction by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. Additionally, through innovative financing methods, there is no capital commitments as a result of leveraging Emory’s future energy spend.

For more information on Emory’s sustainability efforts, visit sustainability.emory.edu.

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The American Red Cross, in collaboration with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asks those who have fully recovered from COVID-19 to donate their plasma. This antibody-rich product is a potentially lifesaving treatment for critically ill COVID-19 patients.

“This need is going to be continual and persistent for quite some time. There are projections that as a health care system and as a global community, we may perhaps be dealing with this virus and its effects for 18 months to two years. Since the virus in new to us, our understanding of its behavior is limited. I want to encourage everyone if they think they qualify to continue to sign up and get the word out that we are still actively looking for donors,” said Dr. Baia Lasky, American Red Cross Regional Medical Director.

This effort has presented an “interesting challenge” for the nonprofit, which supplies about 40 percent of the nation’s blood and provides supports after disasters, because it has to wait for people to recover to collect their convalescent plasma, while more and more people are getting ill.

“We have collected and shipped probably close to 1,700 units of convalescent plasma (nationally); 44 of those units have come from Georgia donors,” Dr. Lasky said in early May.

Frank Papola, a recovered COVID-19 patient from DeKalb County, answered the call to donate his plasma at the American Red Cross Blood Donation Center in Atlanta.

“It meant the world to me,” Papola said. “Going into the hospital, I left my wife at the door. With my condition, I just didn’t know how it was going to turn out. Fortunately, it turned out great.”

Married with two daughters and five grandchildren, Papola is a retired carpenter by trade who worked as a homebuilder for many years. On March 17, he felt fine when he went to bed.

“March 18, I woke up and had the classic signs – chills, very high fever, cough, tight chest. I knew I was very sick, so I called my health care provider and he said go to the hospital,” Papola said.

Papola stayed in Piedmont Hospital for about a week.“It was a pretty scary event, but thank God I pulled through it,” Papola said.

Initially hospitals were helping identify potential donors, but that proved to be a manual and non-scalable process. So, the Red Cross turned to the community. But, until recently, only a small percentage of individuals, like Papola, met FDA’s eligibility criteria, of verified COVID-19 diagnosis, as well as being symptom free for at least 28 days prior to donation (or at least 14 days with a negative COVID-19 test result).

“As of April 27, the Red Cross has initiated antibody testing – so we no longer require that initial positive test. It’s really opened up the donor pool for us,” Dr. Lasky said.

So those who were symptomatic or received presumptive diagnosis from their physician, can now prequalify as a convalescent plasma donor, since the Red Cross can verify on the backend through its own antibody testing. Note the Red Cross is not offering COVID-19 antibody testing for the general public nor to its routine blood, platelet or plasma donors.

Once Papola became aware of the convalescent plasma program, he signed up to help.

“There’s a lot of people doing a lot of good and I wanted to do something.  So, how simple is it to sit in a chair and donate my plasma. It’s basically like giving blood. To know that I could possibly be helping someone survive this awful disease. I don’t think anything was more rewarding, other than having my kids and grandkids,” Papola said.

At the end of May, Papola donated his convalescent plasma for a second time. He urges others to follow his lead.

“Donate and not just plasma, donate blood. There’s a real need. Donations are down, from what I was told. They make it very easy. It takes just about an hour of your time. There was no after effective. Just go and do it,” Papola said.

Learn more at RedCrossBlood.org/plasma4covid.

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Home Buyers Migrating to Rural Areas

The Big Migration: Home Buyers Looking in Rural Areas One definitive trend happening in US housing markets recently is a migration of people from congested urban areas to the burbs and rural regions. Home buyers could be looking to buy houses in quieter remote towns away from expensive big cities. The best cities to buy…