Thumbs up: Visitors to Cascade Lake near Hampstead earlier this week were reminded of the importance of sun safety and skin cancer prevention by the Fun in the Sun display on its lake deck, hosted by the Carroll County Health Department and the Partnership for a Healthier Carroll County. In 2013, an estimated 30,680 new skin cancer cases were diagnosed in Maryland alone, according to the American Cancer Society. Through Fun in the Sun and its partner program, Safer in the Shade, the Partnership and the health department hope to educate residents and improve the level of awareness. Fun in the Sun has existed since 2011 but this year expanded to other areas in the county in the hopes of growing the demographic it can reach.
Thumbs up: Earlier this week, Carroll County Health Department staff recorded a video that will appear throughout the county and state to help spread the word about one of the newest initiatives designed to help reduce the number of fatal opioid overdoses, the naloxone training program. In 2013, 858 people died in Maryland due to a drug- or alcohol-related overdose, the majority of them being from opioid drugs, including 14 people in Carroll. The proper administration of naloxone, an antidote for opioid poisoning, can save a child, or a parent or a partner, but only if they know about it. The hope is that the video will help spread the word throughout the community that this new resource is available.
Thumbs up: Youths at Camp Wesley chose to donate a week of their summer to service, helping members of the community by doing work on their homes. Camp Wesley, sponsored by Wesley United Methodist Church in Hampstead, has expanded over its 12 years to include multiple Carroll and Baltimore county area parishes. The 32 campers from sixth grade and up this year worked at more than a dozen sites, helping community members repair and restore their houses over the course of the five-day camp.
Thumbs up: Nonprofit CHANGE Inc. recently began a new program called the Senior Life Group, which meets in the afternoons to relax after taking part in vocational work programs in the mornings. It's a new program CHANGE launched in response to what Teresa Perrera, CHANGE's director of development, said is a wonderful problem to have: Many of its clients — adults with developmental disabilities — are living longer than ever before, long enough that they are beginning to age out of the traditional vocational programs the organization offers. Clients work in the regular vocational program as they wish and then come back to the Special Life Program in the afternoon to spend time with other senior clients. The Senior Life Program is only part time for now, organizers hope to bring additional staff to help expand it to full time.
