Meldrim Community Service Hours Add Up for Steve Rodgers!

l-r, Stephen Newsome presents the Volunteer of the Year Award to Steve Rodgers

By Kathy Moore

Stephen Newsome, who lives in Meldrim, decided about a year ago that Meldrim needed a Community Service Program. He was helping many Seniors around town volunteering on his own. Then he thought it’d be great to have a program and some help. So, he contacted the surrounding counties (Effingham, Bryan & Chatham) and began receiving people to perform many different types of tasks around town and even
out to Eden.
In addition to the help he got from community service people, a friend started volunteering with him. That particularly enthusiastic volunteer and friend, Steve Rodgers, joined Stephen in his efforts, solely on a volunteer basis. In the past year he has clocked over 150 hours in the program. So, Mr. Newsome gave him an award for Volunteer
of the Year. “For all the help he’s given us this year and for all his service. He’s worked so hard.” Stephen says.
“We do anything they may need done, like yard work, or once we fixed a handicap ramp, we paint and pressure clean houses. We clean the park too and pick up trash in the cemetery.” Stephen said about the many jobs they carry out for the town of Meldrim and its senior residents. “Yea, lots of yard work!” Steve added. Read More

School Board Needs Your Input On New Schools For The Westside

By Kathy Moore

Monday night at the Crossroads Parkway Savannah Tech campus in Pooler, Superintendent Dr. Lockamy, along with other School Board members laid out to those in attendance, the location of the new school to be built to alleviate the over crowding issue.
If you missed the meeting, you still have a chance to voice your opinion about any issues you may have. Dr. Lockamy specifically expressed his desire to hear what you have to say before he makes his recommendations to the board on the 15th. “It’s your school for your children and I need your input,” he said.
The new school, to be completed in the Fall of 2010, will be located on Spring Lake Drive and Benton Boulevard near the Highlands development at Godley Station. Dr. Lockamy said it takes 18 months to build a new school. The Spring Lake Subdivision’s sign even touts “new schools coming.”
The major issue discussed was whether to build two separate schools, an Elementary and Middle School, or rather to just have one school housing the elementary portion on the bottom and the Middle School on the top. This is called a K-8 school (Kindergarten through 8th grade).
There was some discussion about this idea but not as much as the discourse that took place at the start of the meeting when many from the Port Wentworth community spoke out about their school over crowding issues. Since there is a 5-year window, Dr. Lockamy explained, on E-splost funds from the time it is voted on, there are no plans to build a new school for Port Wentworth at this time.
Other ways to build a school without E-splost funds were discussed and that there would be a county-community forum about this issue later. 7th District Board member Julie Gerbsch said, “Voters passed the E-splost back in 2006 to have this school built in Godley Station,” indicating that these things take time. Read More