NEWS

PROUD – People Reaching Out for Unity and Diversity – invites you to join in the conversation about Ferguson’s experiences over the past thirty years and evaluate what worked, what didn’t, and what should be done next. The conference is called “Thirty Years After Oak Park: Ferguson Then and Now.”

In October 1994, the City of Ferguson hosted its first Oak Park Exchange Congress at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley. The conference considered ideas for stabilizing the city as it was going through demographic changes. Several programs, including the Ferguson Neighborhood Improvement Program, came out of that conference.

PROUD, a volunteer not-for-profit organization, was established as a direct result of the conference. PROUD’s purpose is to continue the goals presented at the Oak Park Conference by working to improve relationships among members of the Ferguson community.

We will return to Florissant Valley on October 18 and 19, for a two-day conference to consider the ways that Ferguson has changed over the past thirty years. Join us for the Friday afternoon session on “Building Relationships,” the Saturday morning session on “Appreciating Diversity,” the Saturday afternoon session on “Strengthening Community,” or for the whole conference. There will also be a reception on Friday evening to honor the city officials who organized Ferguson’s original Oak Park Conference as well as PROUD’s charter members.

For more information and tickets, visit our website at www.proud-ferguson.org.

by Marsha DeMere Gebhardt

Mass mosquito fogging from trucks DOES NOT significantly reduce the mosquito population! It only kills the adult mosquitoes that are flying at that time and are within reach of the spray. St. Louis County Vector Control contracts with municipalities to treat any areas that are home to disease-carrying mosquitoes. The estimated annual cost to Ferguson is $1,500, compared with the thousands that Ferguson had been paying for just the chemical to spray from trucks.

Mosquito fogging does nothing to kill the incredible number of mosquito larva, that breed in as little as a cap-full of standing water around your house and yard. Instead, the spraying stays on plants and trees, and kills the beneficial pollinators and the insects and caterpillars that birds feed to their babies.

SO…it is important for residents to learn what we can do to reduce the impact of mosquitoes on our outdoor living.

Most mosquitos do not carry disease and are known as ‘nuisance mosquitos’. These are the ones we can only deal with ourselves, in the following ways.

Prevent those present from biting you:

• Have a fan blowing on you and others gathered with you. Mosquitoes are weak flyers, so a fan ‘blows them away’!
• Keep bare skin at a minimum. Wear lightweight long sleeves and long pants.

Reduce or eliminate the number of mosquitoes in your yard:

• Eliminate standing water wherever possible. Gutters, low areas, tires, etc.
• For standing water that you can’t eliminate, add a piece of a mosquito dunk. These dunks ONLY kill mosquito larva and black fly larva. They are harmless to pets, birds, people….
• Make a Mosquito Bucket of Doom! This will attract female mosquitoes to lay their eggs in the bucket’s water, and the larva will not survive.

Ferguson Parks and Rec will make mosquito dunks available to residents during the ECO Fair at the Farmers Market on August 17. They will also have buckets available so residents can make their own Buckets of Doom by simply adding grass clippings and a stick for the females to enter to lay their eggs. You’ll be welcome to take ingredients for a neighbor or two, as well. If you don’t make it to the ECO Fair, you can find mosquito dunks at most big-box and smaller hardware stores. (At our West Ferguson Neighbors July Gathering, we provided these materials. Other neighborhood organizations might like to do the same at future neighborhood events.)

Here’s to ‘dooming’ the mosquitoes, while celebrating the many other, wonderful, insects…the butterflies, moths, and the many non-stinging native bees and wasps. These are a pleasure to observe, and a vital food source for our native birds.

by Dr. Larry Brown

Every now and then, we should stop and take a self-inventory. This is to make sure that we are making progress on our personal goals and are not caught up in a routine that is working against us. This is also very necessary in order to make sure that we are well rounded in our activities, and apportionments of time.

Now is an excellent time for such an activity because we can change with the weather, if necessary. If not now, then when?

Our communities need more people, like yourself, who are concerned about being the best neighbor they can be.

Whenever, you decide to take such an inventory, make sure that you have made arrangements and are ready to accept honest and real feedback for evaluation purposes.

There may be some small changes that you can make in order to achieve your desired outcomes, however, there may be a requirement for some major things to be done as soon as possible, in order for you to achieve the desired results.

Having someone that you can trust along with you for feedback purposes is desirable because as the older folks say “ two heads are better than 1”.

However, it is very important who that someone is, how honest they will be, how confidential they will be, and how willing you are to accept their input into your process.

Upon receiving feedback that requires some changes to be made, be also willing to discuss these proposed changes with the person you have selected to include in the process. In this manner, you don’t have to feel alone with the decisions. Keep in mind that the reason for doing any of this is to make sure that you are making a much-needed contribution.

It may become necessary for you to make these assessments periodically so that you can stay on the right track. Sometimes, major events occur in our own lives that may require adjustments to be made.

This is so very important to the advancement of human – kind, that we must not take it litely, or not at all.

If you find that at this time you are not prepared to make the kind of commitment that you feel is necessary, then by all means get started by contacting us at gracechapelministries.org or email us at gracechapeldevelopment@gmail.com

If Not, You Then Who? If Not Now, Then When?

by Rob Tayloe

During the late afternoon on March 02, 2024, about 80 people had the pleasure of seeing and hearing the Grammy-award winning Melissa Etheridge, as she came to the north side of St. Louis county, to assist in fundraising to revise a former shopping center into a new magical facility, that currently has a bank, spaces for your offices to rent, a rehab center, a training center, a Cathy’s Kitchen To-Go, a child care center, and eventually a black-box theatre… all thanks to the hearts and visions of such as Cathy’s Kitchen Restaurant & Diner’s owner Cathy Lucas Jenkins, her husband Jerome, and so many other wonderful people here.

I love this area, and as my dad & his brothers & sister were raised in Berkeley, and then me in St. Ann, and I now live in Ferguson, I’ve a high affinity for this area… and such as this development is simply grand, there is much to be proud of in our area.

As Melissa stated herself during this wonderful event: “This is the sort of thing that changes communities. This is not a band-aid. This is not just teaching someone to fish. This is teaching them to own the fish market.”

Thanks much to Cathy, Jerome, Melissa, and EVERYONE ELSE involved in this development, that is yet another step forward for OUR community!

by John McDonald

Make an easy New Year’s resolution. It won’t require any money, no extra time, and very little effort. It will, however, further your personal growth and value as a community member. Simply resolve to clean up after yourself.

When shopping, be considerate of others. Too many customers pick up an item, decide against buying it and carelessly put it down anywhere. Most of what’s left of North County’s retail sector is now dominated by discount stores like Dollar Tree, Walmart and Dollar General and this mess soon overwhelms their bare bones staffs. Return merchandise to where it belongs (and this includes not leaving carts in the middle of the parking lot). Instruct your children to do so, encourage adults with you to do so and model for all those who might notice how to do so.

Leaving stores in disarray drives up costs, and thus prices, not just when inventory gets lost in the jumble but when grocery stores have to throw out food someone left on a shelf to thaw. It also frequently drives away shoppers who go to similar stores but in “nicer neighborhoods”. As one social media poster recently wrote about her preferences, “I do live in Florissant but I try to avoid going most places in North County, I like to go further out to shop and eat.”

Additionally, resolve not to make the trash in your car someone else’s mess to clean up. When that litter is strewn along our streets it not only contributes to North County’s image problem but the broken bottles and bony meat scraps are a thoughtless danger to local pets. Judging by the cheap trash, those who throw beer cans, cigar/cigarette wrappers, fast food containers and liquor bottles out their car windows as they drive through our neighborhoods are generally young adults thumbing their noses at society. However, resealing used diapers or re-tying bags of eaten food and leaving them by the curb suggest some drivers believe their littering is excusable if it’s neat. Of course it isn’t, anymore than cleaning out your car in a parking lot and rationalizing that the store’s maintenance staff will dispose of the pile of debris you left.

Most readers of The Neighborhood News are obviously interested in their communities and already make an effort to be responsible for their own messes but if you see yourself in any of these descriptions, step up. It’s also likely that most readers know family members or friends who don’t make that effort. They’re fairly easily spotted by the messes they leave at home or in the yard for someone else to manage. Cleaning up after yourself, expecting your children to do the same and modeling that behavior for other adults will not only contribute to your personal growth but will make North County a better place. It’s an easy win-win.

by Dr. Larry A. Brown

It is very important for us to learn and practice the techniques for winning because we all enjoy the good feelings that accompany the situation of winning as opposed to the awfully bad feelings and outcomes associated with lg. “ Everybody loves a winner, but when you lose, you lose alone”. One technique is “ As often and frequently as I am knocked down, I will get up until I win “. Hopefully, though, we can employ and use certain strategies and techniques that will result in our winning without having to “ get knocked down “ so often.

To begin with, we must respect the other side, be it an individual, or a situation, and realize that they want to win also. We must learn to listen well, in order to find out the weaknesses, desires, and things necessary to overcome in order to win.

We have to be willing to negotiate or give a little in order to gain the victory. We have to begin the situation with true love for the adversary so that after we win, we can perhaps woo them on our side because in reality, the more we are together, the better off we will be in the future.

We must approach the situation with strong will and determination. We must have the desire to win. If necessary, we must constantly remind ourselves of the benefits that go along with winning, both for ourselves, and others.

We must make sure that the win is not just for us alone, but that it is necessary in order for others to benefit. That is why our hearts must be pure and our thoughts truly aimed for a right and just end. We must make sure that we have enough resources in order to win. We must be willing to stay the course, until we win. So often, we get accused of starting something and leaving or giving up before the job is completed. We have to exercise the will to remain on the battlefield as long as it becomes necessary, in order to reach a desirable conclusion.

It is entirely possible for each of us to enjoy winning in the future and as a matter of Fact, it is urgent that we win more than we lose, in order to maintain our positive mental well- being.

Let us all decide to become winners this year and not accept facts that we are to be in certain categories and that we are born losers .

You too, can win!!

If you need help, you may contact us at www.gracechapelministries.org or email us at gracechapeldevelopment@gmail.com

May this year be one that we can look back on and declare that we won more than we lost !!

It’s hard for me to fathom this is the end of our third year producing the Ferguson Neighborhood News.

We could not get this to press if it wasn’t for our wonderful advertisers. Month after month they continue to fund our efforts to bring news that is not depressing. While we lose some sponsors, others come on board and that is a true blessing to our community. As our readers know, the City pulled their sponsorship earlier this year and we thought that would be the end of the paper. However, we have been blessed with support so we could remain a positive force in a world that seems to have come unhinged.

First, I would like to thank all our advertisers who have been with us since day one. You are the best! To our advertisers who have left, we thank you for working with us and we pray your business will thrive.

To our new advertisers, a big thank you for considering advertising in our humble newspaper. We hope this will be a long lasting relationship.

For those businesses that have not advertised with us, we would really love to have your business on our pages.

Next, to all our contributors whom sometimes struggle with our deadlines, you are so appreciated. I too struggle getting this paper formatted and laid out either finding space or trying to fill space. It’s always a new adventure.

To the new columnists that have joined us recently welcome and thanks.

And to those who donate, you are truly the angels of the community.

There is no way we could accomplish our mission of providing the Ferguson Neighborhood News to you our readers without the unsung heroes who are behind the scenes:

Danielle Henderson handles all the billing and she is such a sweet lady who told me the other day that she never thought she would be a bill collector. She is not only sweet but savvy also. It’s great to have you on our side. Thanks Danielle.

Mary Haux for her consistent work with the ads that need to re-sized or created from scratch and her help pointing out my formatting errors. As always, thanks Mary!

Mike Noelker delivers the papers to all the newsstands. Again, without him, it would be a nightmare for me. Thanks Mike!

Bob McGartland keeps me grounded to the task and is invaluable. Bob is one of those who truly thinks of everyone else before himself. Thanks Bob I appreciate all you do.

As we approach the holidays, I pray we all take time to appreciate all of those who help and support us each and everyday.

Wishing you Peace, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and a blessed, safe, and prosperous 2024.

Papa Deau